In a letter to bishops, Bätzing said he would “not be available for re-election” when the German episcopate meets in Würzburg on Feb. 23-26, at the end of his tumultuous six-year term.
The 64-year-old Bishop of Limburg said he had made the decision “after consultation and careful deliberation.” In a nod to divisions among the bishops that deepened during his tenure, Bätzing thanked those who had “supported me with appreciation and constructive criticism over the past six years.”
“It has been six intense years in which we bishops, together with many others from the people of God, have been able to make a difference and realize a sustainable future for the Church in our country,” wrote Bätzing, who oversaw Germany’s controversial “synodal way.”
“Now it is time to hand over this important task for the work of the bishops’ conference to others. And I am sure that things will continue to go well.”
How are the German media summing up Bätzing’s tenure? And who are they tipping to replace him as chairman of the bishops’ conference?
Six years of turmoil
Bishop Bätzing was thrust into the limelight in 2020, when Cardinal Reinhard Marx unexpectedly announced he would not be standing for a second term as bishops’ conference chairman.
Marx’s departure was a surprise because he had just presided over the launch of the synodal way, an initiative seeking far-reaching changes to Catholic teaching and practice in the wake of an abuse crisis in Germany.
Bätzing, then just 58, took over responsibility for the synodal way as opposition to the project built in Rome, where he had relatively little experience.
Weeks after Bätzing’s election, Germany entered its first COVID lockdown. He was required to formulate and defend the Church’s response to the pandemic, which included the closure of churches and suspension of public Masses.
Following the COVID-19 crisis, Bätzing was able to focus on the synodal way. But his uncompromising commitment to its radical agenda alienated the minority of German bishops who rejected its premises.
His championing of the synodal way also caused rifts with bishops outside of Germany, notably Poland’s then-bishops’ conference president Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki. This was perhaps ironic for a bishop whose motto was congrega in unum (“gather together.”)
In an op-ed for katholisch.de, the German Church’s official news site, journalist Mario Trifunovic argued that Bätzing’s determination helped to drive the synodal way to its conclusion despite Roman resistance.
“He ensured that conflicts were not postponed but addressed openly,” Trifunovic wrote, acknowledging that Bätzing’s approach upset those who thought he was too close to the lay Central Committee for German Catholics, which co-sponsored the synodal way alongside the bishops’ conference.
Norbert Demuth of the German Catholic news agency KNA highlighted Bätzing’s role in winning the bishops’ unanimous backing for a 2024 statement condemning the Alternative for Germany party.
Demuth suggested Bätzing also “achieved a small breakthrough” when he secured the appointment of a woman, Beate Gilles, as bishops’ conference general secretary — a global first.
A less favorable assessment came from Peter Winnemöller, a journalist associated with the New Beginning initiative, founded as an alternative to the synodal way.
Winnemöller argued that the root cause of Bätzing’s “disastrous” tenure was “the politicization of the office” of chairman.
Summing up a widely expressed view in the German media, the Augsburger Allgemeine’s Daniel Wirsching said that “a mediator and moderate reformer is likely to be in demand” as the next bishops’ leader.
“Basically, someone like Pope Leo XIV,” he wrote.