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Assembly of the Synodal Way: The Pope is against change
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa
The Catholic Church in Germany has high hopes for the synodal path - and wants to renew the badly battered institution from within.
With Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church has now openly criticized the reform process.
»There is a very good evangelical church in Germany.
We don't need two of them," Francis said in an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica.
He said that to the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing.
The desired reforms in the German Church, such as women in clerical offices or the blessing of homosexual couples, are sometimes heavily criticized in the Vatican.
The Catholic Church in Germany started the reform process in 2019 as a consequence of the abuse scandal.
It deals with four subject areas: Catholic sexual morality, dealing with power, the position of women and the priestly duty to be celibate.
Bätzing is driving the process against massive criticism from conservative church leaders from the Vatican and especially from the USA.
"The problem arises when the synodal path springs from the intellectual and theological elite and is influenced by a lot of outside pressures," Francis said.
There are some dioceses in which the synodal path is slowly being developed with the faithful, i.e. the church people.
Apparently, this type of approach finds more approval from the 85-year-old Argentine.
Woelki is said not to have asked for a time-out himself – but to have been asked
Francis also referred to an earlier letter in which he commented on the synodal path of German Catholics.
It took him a month to write the letter and he deliberately wrote it without the involvement of the Curia - the Vatican's central administration - he said.
However, the letter was formulated in such flowery and ambiguous terms that both supporters and opponents of the reforms have referred to it ever since.
In the interview, the Pope also addressed Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne.
He said: "When the situation was very turbulent, I asked the Archbishop to go away for six months so that things could settle down and I could see more clearly." The phrase is interesting because Woelki had claimed the hiatus was his own idea been.
Francis continued: “When he came back, I asked him to write a letter of resignation.
He did that and gave it to me.
And he wrote a letter of apology to the diocese.
I left him in office to see what would happen, but I have his resignation in my hand.« The decision on whether he accepts the request may still take some time: »What is happening right now is that it there are many pressure groups, and under pressure it is not possible to judge.«
He only wants to make a decision once the pressure has subsided.
There is also an "economic question" in the Archdiocese of Cologne, and in this context he is considering sending a financial team.
What exactly the Pope meant by that remained unclear.
apr/dpa