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It was the Germans who elected him, therefore the Pope on the “synodal path” of the Teutonic Bishops Conference little can. This is the vulgar propagation of the so-called “traditional front”. Therefore, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have been voted into the Conclave by the majority of the Teutonic cardinals. At least for the progressives, since the conservatives could only look at the predecessor, who is Benedict XVI, and his willingness to defend the doctrine as we know it. Without any possible reconstruction, however, there is a problem for the Vatican: the will of the Germans, gathered in assembly in a kind of internal Council, to make binding decisions for the future of their national Church, at the risk of producing an effect. . large-scale imitation. Provisions that foresee disorders in matters of strict universal competence, therefore, the exclusive competence of the leadership of the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome.
The Germans feel no reason. Your goal is to answer what Joseph ratzinger called “moral collapse”: the drama of abuses linked to the Church and ecclesiastical circles. The Teutonic episcopate seems inclined to think that the solution lies in the abolition of priestly celibacy. A joke about which the emeritus has already expressed himself extensively with the help of Cardinal Robert Sarah in From the bottom of our hearts. The former pope and the German Ratzingerian cardinals are extremely opposed to the abolition hypothesis, while German progressive circles push for such reform. Not only that: Germany’s ecclesiastical left has a number of additional changes in mind, ranging from hierarchical equalization between men and women within the church context to openings towards gay unions, which progressives would like to bless. The majority of the Teutonic episcopate ultimately wants to go down the path that conservatives consider modernist.
After all, the future of Catholicism is at stake. Among those who feed rumors of a possible “schism” and those who invite everyone to calm down, underlining the particular character of the “Teutonic Synod”, the true test will be revealed at the end of the process: those gathered in the assembly want to make a binding decision . At this point, it will be interesting, and indeed decisive, to see the reaction of the Holy See, which could firmly oppose the doctrinal developments passed through the sieve of the German Bishops’ Conference. The founder of this path, it goes without saying, is the cardinal Reinhard marx, who nevertheless resigned as president of the Teutonic bishops shortly before the start of the works. Marx is a prominent man in the reign of Pope Francis. To the progressive cardinal, for example, the Pope entrusted the plan regarding the revision of internal spending. One year of “Synod” (although not really a Synod) is already behind us. Another one is missing. Despite Covid-19 and the impediments caused by the pandemic, the progressive ecclesiastical left continues to move forward.
Rome look and somehow intervene, but it doesn’t seem like enough. The march of the German Episcopal Conference continues, between one thematic forum and another. There are four potential areas of intervention: power and its variations within the church; the relationship between Christian-Catholic doctrine‘homosexuality; the role of women in the ecclesiastical hierarchy; the status of the priesthood, hence the possible vindication of the need to abolish celibacy. Possible earthquakes – as can be seen from the topics that are the subject of synodal discussion – are disparate and relevant at the same time. If Benedict XVI opposes innovations such as the establishment of a female priesthood or a catechetical clearing of homosexual unions, what are Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s positions in this regard? The future of the German “Biennial Synod”, but also that of the Catholic Church, will probably revolve around this question.
Pope Francis’ reaction
French Pope he expressed himself, and he did so with some clarity as well. The Holy Father cannot accept that a national episcopal conference, even the German one, decides in his place. In the first place, the title they have chosen from among the lion’s walls: “Letter from the Holy Father Francis to the people of God who are on their way to Germany.” The term “people” is preferred, if only because the “Inner Council” of the Teutonics makes use of the decisive participation of the laity, who for the traditionalists represent the true interpreters of the progressive impulses that have arisen up to this point. For Bergoglio, synodality is important and indeed essential, but this history of the Germans is independent of the will of the Argentine pontiff. And in fact Bergoglio writes: “… wrapped in inevitable series and analysis, we can fall into subtle temptations to which I think we must pay attention and care, since, far from helping us to walk together, they will keep us clinging and installed in recurring patterns and mechanisms that will end up distorting or limiting our mission; and also with the aggravation that if we are not aware of it we can end up turning a complicated game of arguments, disquisitions and resolutions that will only take us away from real and daily contact with the faithful and the Lord. ”Translated: the German Church cannot do what it wants. And the Teutonic bishops, above all, cannot dispose of universal affairs. The letter dates back to June 2019. The problem is that Germans, Instead of beating around the bush, they have changed at speed, an attitude that has fueled the convictions of those beginning to glimpse a schismatic risk.
The part of the German Church that opposes Marx
The German church, like many other national ecclesiastical contexts during the contemporary era, it is divided in half. Therefore, not all consecrated persons agree with the goodness of the ambitions expressed by the alliance of the ecclesiastical left, which is made up of laity, priests, prelates, cardinals, etc. Cardinal Rainer Woelki, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Gherard Mueller and Ratzingerian Cardinal Walter Brandmueller are on the other side of the river, where the dissidents or the so-called opposition to the “Synod” live. Yes, because between the theological and advanced progression of doctrinal currents, the Teutonic left can now define itself as a majority. The base of the faithful has also noticed this, which has come to protest through real street demonstrations, however guided, in a certain sense, by another well-known name from the conservative Italian and international hemisphere: that Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò, who jumped to headlines for his McCarrick memorandum. The text in which he asked for the resignation of Pope Francis. Since pre-Vatican II, Christian-Catholic theology has developed around the dialectic of Teutonic ecclesiastical circles. Not only the Jesuit Karl Rahner and what would later become Benedict XVI, but much of the contemporary Church depends on the fruitful nature of northern European theological reasoning. Only that northern Europe, after having been the homeland of conservatism, now seems more immersed than other territories in the search for a new Luther, a new figure capable of taking the Church beyond scandals. And someone begins to whisper the name of Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
The wealth of the German Church and the flight of the faithful
Joseph Ratzinger would have liked to abolish the ecclesiastical tax: this more than a reality is a suggestion. The ecclesiastical tax is what allows the German Church to be able to say rich, and therefore aspire to a certain independence of maneuver, as in the case of the “Internal Council”, which is not a Council – as it is not a Synod (biennial or not) – but which runs the risk of representing a fundamental milestone for Catholicism today. Certainly, Benedict XVI attacked a certain conception of understanding being Church. As in the speech that we have reported in this study for ilGiornale.it. Criticizing the economic health of the German Church today would seem to go against the trend. And, although Jorge Mario Bergoglio never went to Germany, perhaps not even to send a signal, we never heard from him again to abolish the ecclesiastical tax in Rome. At least not in public, at least not through the voice of the Roman pontiff. But in this story of wealth there is also a counterpoint: the flight of the faithful. As Emanuel Pietrobon explained, the number of people who have chosen to leave the Catholic faith in Germany appears to be increasing exponentially. Conservatives think that this is one of the effects or rather the cost of the work of “Protestantization”, that is, of the progressive approach, in organizational and doctrinal forms, from the Christian-Catholic Church to the Protestant one.
The imminent showdown
How can the parable of this story end? Perhaps with a phone call, but still no confrontation between the Holy See and the German episcopate. We are in the field of hypotheses, but it seems difficult to draw an alternative to a collision. The Germans have no intention of surrendering, as is more in their popular tradition. the Vaticanon the other hand, it cannot allow Berlin to make “binding decisions”. The first results of the Synod, however, allow us to understand what the orientation is. There are – as the translation presented by the Van Thuan Observatory indicates – a series of motions, which in any case revolutionize some points of the Catechism in whole or in part. The Pope can decide to answer or not – this is clear – but not to do so could mean a substantial pass to the limitations identified by the Teutonics in their forums. The domino effect is just around the corner, and other national realities could decide at that moment to have universal subjects available. We would thus witness the return of National churches. A fact that cannot be excluded in any case but that would coincide with the tendency to unity that is typical of the last stages of the history of Catholicism. Due to the double intransigence, the German and the Vatican, it is possible to predict the persistence of some frictions. If the Pope were to oppose the innovations and the Germans forced his hand anyway, then we would begin to speak of schism with less shame than in the current form.
A peaceful Christmas for suffering Christians
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