English Bishop: Germany’s Synodal Way May Lead to Schism
Bishop Philip Egan. (Wikipedia)
An English Catholic bishop said that he feared that the German Church’s “Synodal Way” would lead to a “de facto schism.”
Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth told CNA on March 16 that he felt a duty to speak out about the multi-year process bringing together German lay people and bishops to discuss four major topics: the way power is exercised in the Church; sexual morality; the priesthood; and the role of women.
He said: “As a bishop, I have a responsibility not just for the Church in this diocese but for the Universal Church. I have German friends and like me, they have been concerned with the Synodal Way and its process for some time.”
“The manner in which it is set up will inevitably lead to conclusions that compromise and collide with the Church’s Tradition.”
Egan, who has led his southern English diocese since 2012, clarified that he was not opposed to the discussion of the “hot-button issues” chosen by the Synodal Way’s organisers.
“But a properly Catholic methodology is needed for such a discussion to take place,” he said. “This would lay down clearly the doctrinal parameters and make clear the meaning and value of those doctrines for people today.”
Germany’s Catholic bishops are overseeing the Synodal Way in partnership with the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), an influential lay body.
The Synodal Way’s working groups are preparing proposals for reform on matters of Church teaching and discipline on marriage, ordination, clerical celibacy, and sexual ethics.
Organisers initially said that the process would result in “binding” decisions, prompting a Vatican intervention.
A minority of German bishops have also concern about the process.
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne said last September that the worst outcome would be if the Synodal Way “leads to a split and thereby outside of the Church, out of communion with the universal Church.”
In an interview with the German Catholic news agency KNA, the cardinal said he worried that this would create “something like a German national church.”
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg has criticised the Synodal Way’s procedures, accusing organizers of a lack of transparency.
Egan told CNA: “My worry is that we are very close to the point of no return with this Synodal Way — when bishops and people will be promoting positions at variance with the universal magisterium and the Church’s discipline e.g. the ordination of women, intercommunion etc.”
“This will lead to a de facto schism that will be very difficult (and theologically complex) to repair.”
Synodal Way organisers have repeatedly rejected claims that the process will lead to a split in the Church.
Responding to Woelki’s comments last September, Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, insisted that the Church in Germany is “part of the Universal Church and nothing will change that.”
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