The German bishops have embarked on a process designed to change the rules on the Church's employment of remarried divorcees.At the moment anyone working for the Church who remarries can be sacked.
However, at the second meeting of the German Church's "Dialogue Procedure" at Hanover from 14-16 September, which was attended by 300 delegates from all the German dioceses, changes to the rule were extensively discussed, and the issue will be taken forward to the coming autumn session of the German bishops' conference.
The Dialogue Procedure was initiated by the German bishops' conference after the clergy sex-abuse crisis that swept through Germany in 2010 and caused more than 180,000 German Catholics to leave the Church.