The four bishops’ absence will likely undermine efforts to present the future body as fully representative of the Catholic Church in Germany.
A minority breaks ranks
Cologne’s Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Eichstätt’s Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke, Passau’s Bishop Stefan Oster, and Regensburg’s Rudolf Voderholzer took part in the 2019-2023 synodal way, which brought together Germany’s bishops and select lay people at five assemblies.
The four bishops were seen as belonging to a conservative minority that opposed synodal way resolutions calling for significant changes to Catholic teaching and practice.
The initiative, launched against the backdrop of an abuse crisis, produced 150 pages of resolutions, appealing for women deacons, a re-examination of priestly celibacy, lay preaching at Masses, a bigger lay role in selecting bishops, and a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.
One of the most contentious resolutions, approved in September 2022, called for the establishment of a permanent “advisory and decision-making body,” composed of bishops and hand-picked lay people, and known as the synodal council.
The resolution said the new body would “take fundamental decisions of supradiocesan significance on pastoral planning, future perspectives of the Church, and financial and budgetary matters of the Church that are not decided at diocesan level.”
But in January 2023, the Vatican told the German bishops that neither they nor synodal way participants had the authority to establish the body.
The Vatican was responding to a request from the four bishops to clarify whether they were obliged to join the synodal committee, a transitional organization with the task of setting up the synodal council by March 2026.
The Vatican said bishops were under no obligation to take part in the synodal committee’s deliberations.
The four bishops later declined to fund the committee from a common episcopal fund and boycotted its meetings.
Commitment to ‘authentic synodality’
At the synodal committee’s latest meeting, held in Magdeburg on May 9-10, participants discussed draft statutes establishing the new national synodal body.
The new body’s members would include all 27 German diocesan bishops and an equal number of members of the lay Central Committee of German Catholics, known by its German abbreviation, ZdK.
Further individuals could be elected to the body by the bishops and ZdK representatives.
Die Tagespost said that in their May 19 letter, the four bishops wrote: “Here, a body that cannot claim any canonical competence decides that all diocesan bishops in Germany, including us, should be members of a future body.”
The bishops expressed surprise at their inclusion and asked “that in future it be made clear that the ‘synodal committee’ only includes 23 diocesan bishops.”
In the letter, addressed to bishops’ conference chairman Bishop Georg Bätzing and ZdK president Irme Stetter-Karp, the bishops noted that they did not consider themselves either members or sponsors of the synodal committee, or “de jure” members, participating by legal right.
The bishops also recalled Rome’s consistent opposition to the creation of a permanent synodal body with governing powers over the Catholic Church in Germany.
They wrote that the Vatican’s fundamental objection remained, though Rome tolerated the bishops’ participation in the synodal committee following March 2024 talks with senior curial officials.
At a follow-up meeting in July 2024, Vatican officials asked that the future synodal body no longer be called the “synodal council” and expressed reservations about “various aspects of the existing proposal.”
In November 2024, the four bishops said they believed that the German synodal initiative was at odds with the global synodal process launched by Pope Francis.
Bishop Oster, one of the four bishops, attended the synod on synodality at the Vatican.
The four bishops reportedly said in their May 19 letter that they would “continue to do everything in their power to promote Roman synodality in our dioceses.”
They underlined their commitment to “dialogue, listening together to the Holy Spirit, speaking freely, consultation, protected spaces and structures for consultation processes.”
They also said they would promote “the confirmation of the common foundations in the faith and teaching of the Church, and the conviction that the common celebration of the Eucharist is the ‘source and summit’ not only of Christian life in general, but also the source and summit of authentic Catholic synodality.”
Future Rome talks
The death of Pope Francis and the election of a new pope have created further uncertainty over the new national synodal body. Pope Leo XIV took part in talks with German bishops in his previous role as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.
ZdK president Stetter-Karp welcomed Pope Leo’s election and attended his May 18 inauguration Mass in Rome.
She told the German Catholic news agency KNA that ZdK leaders planned to attend further meetings in Rome, probably in October, shortly before the synodal committee makes a final decision on the national body’s statutes.
“These statutes, as agreed, will then be presented to Rome,” she said. “Along the way, there will be contacts to foster mutual understanding.”