Are German Catholics pushing for divisive reformation? While the Vatican is trying to circumscribe open dissent, the wealthy German Church is not conceding an inch to Rome. Apr 17, 2021 By Ben Joseph While the Vatican is trying to circumscribe open dissent, the wealthy German Church is not conceding an inch to Rome. The collision course has gained traction in Germany following the country’s bishops’ decision to move forward with the Synodal Path in 2019, a fallout from allegations of rampant clerical abuse and episcopal cover-ups in the country of 45.75 million Christians. At the end of their general assembly in 2019, the German Bishops’ Conference called for the Synodal Path to address a 2018 report, which shed light on sexual abuse and counted 3,677 minors as victims between 1946 and 2014 in 27 dioceses. The proposals of the two-year Synodal Path, if implemented, could contradict Church teachings on homosexuality, ecumenism and women’s ordination and would lead to a schism with Rome, according to theologians. Since the fate of most of these burning issues has been sealed by the Vatican, any new decisions by the German bishops will prove confrontational with the Holy See. Time and again, the Vatican, including Pope Francis in June 2019, warned the German Church against its synodal approach, which would result in “multiplying and nurturing the evils it wanted to overcome.” However, warnings by the Vatican have fallen on the deaf ears of German bishops and the powerful Catholic lay organisations. The Vatican has shown that it would not make things easy for the German bishops to achieve what they want among the 22.6 mil lion Catholics in the country. On March 15, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a responsum which categorically stated the Church’s views on same-sex unions and banned priests from bestowing blessing on those partnerships. The ruling, approved for publication by Pope Francis and signed by CDF prefect Cardinal Luis Ladaria, was seen as an attempt to check Germany’s reform programme. A slew of outspoken Church leaders across Germany and Europe came out in the open challenging the CDF directive. They included Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, a member of Pope Francis’ council of cardinals and the CDF. “The unity of the Church is at stake,” Fr Goran Jovicic, a Hungarian-Croatian theologian, told an influential Catholic publication on April 5. As more adherents are added to the folder of the “schismatic movement” in Germany, the theologians have traced fast transmission of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. In the current case, social media has taken up the role of the printing press to facilitate the rapid spread of the theological dissent. In fact, Pope Francis himself brought this crisis in Germany to the centre stage with his efforts to promote synodality, with increased autonomy for national bishops’ conferences. The German prelates have used it as a cover to go public and push for further reforms, however dissenting they may be. The Vatican leeway to the synodality and emergence of secular ideologies, challenging the Church’s apostolic tradition as a predominantly oppressive system which allots undue privileges to an all-male hierarchy, are pushing to reform the German Church, but it may put an end to many Catholic traditions. Besides, Germans, who are leaving the Church in large numbers, have shown a shift in their conceptualisation of the reality of sin “at the personal level.” More than 200,000 left the German Church between 2018 and 2019 and a recent survey showed that almost 30 per cent of Catholics are now mulling over deserting the Church. The synod is, in fact, aimed at filling the empty pews. With its national Kirchensteuer, the church tax system that funds local dioceses, the Church in Germany is the richest in the world. In 2017, it secured €6 billion (US$7.2 billion) through this system. The funds are used for supporting Catholic charities in the developing world. What should cause alarm to the Vatican and the universal Church is that “Synod” and “Synodal Path” are not the same, as stated by the preparatory document by Germany’s Church leaders. The Synodal Path is not a canonical format but sui generis. So the topics discussed are regulated and do not require the nod from the Holy See. It can come out with its own version of Catholic teachings and can chalk up its own course of action. The path is moving at a snail’s pace and some of the vital issues have been put on hold due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, online assemblies are held like the one held in the first week of February. The influential lay Central Committee of German Catholics, which has aired its views on a range of Church teachings including women’s ordination and sexual morality, is taking part in the assembly only on condition that it makes binding policies for the German Church. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and former president of the German Bishops’ Conference and a close ally of Pope Francis, has categorically stated that decisions of the Synodal Path are binding. After the conclusion, the path will submit its decision to the Pope, requesting changes to the Catechism. The Vatican has already pressed its highranking officials to tame the troublesome German Church. During an interview with Spain’s Churchowned COPE radio network on April 5, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, stressed the importance of unity and decried divisions within the Church between the conservative and progressive wings. Three days earlier, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, urged Catholics to desist from ways that are dividing the Church. The possibility of a German mutiny — five centuries after the Reformation — cannot be fully ruled out against Pope Francis’ “church of the poor” by a wealthy German Church. ––ucanews.com https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.uc...holics-pushing-for-divisive-reformation/92086
Germany, Germany, Germany...what is it with them? Two world wars, Hitler, Merkel, this. Makes me wonder about "the mindset." But I'm always stuck in the USA so can't know.
During another "red zone," and our churches closed my lent was blessed with Daily Mass on the web. So grateful for this! God offering God to God +++
Isn't what is happening to Faithful Catholics at the moment very similiar to what happened to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He saw all the sins of the World PAss Before His Eyes? We see massive organised clerical child abuse and cover us at the very highest levels. Sodomy everywhere amongst the Clergy, to such an extent that the Sodomites are in many regions in actual working control. Deep seated Financial Corruption everywhere but particularly in the Vatican, at the very heart of the Church. Heresy so much enthroned that even good Devout Catholics become confused as to where the True Teachings of the Church actually lie. Apostasy of both Clergy and the Lay people totally endemic. We truly are like Jesus in the Garden watching the Evils of the Church walk past s laughing. Dear God, send us your Mother as an angel of comfort in these Dark Days. The Darkest in the Entire History of the Church.
Yes, but unlike Jesus, who bore it all upon His innocent shoulders, we too are sinners. We (I'm including myself here) have to be careful not to be like the man who prayed, "Thank you, God, that I am not like those sinners..." Have we been humbly bringing Christ's love to others every day? Have we been praying with true love in our hearts for our priests, bishops, and pope? Because if the laity had been praying and fasting as we ought for the souls of our Church and secular leaders, perhaps things wouldn't be as bad as they are today. We are seeing the bad fruits of decades of spiritual laziness and concupiscence in our own lives. It has never been all on the hierarchy to keep the world holy. Thinking of Jesus in the garden is good, as we can cross time and comfort Him. He saw then what we see now, in addition to the state of our own souls and all others throughout time. But far worse for Him, with His innocent Sacred Heart that intimately feels the rejection of each soul. Priests especially are so dear to Him. He uses to appear to Padre Pio sobbing, it hurt Him so much how He is ignored and offended by His beloved priests. We can't even begin to understand Christ's pain, but we can do our best to comfort His heart by offering our prayers and sacrifices to atone for our sins and others'. Could you imagine the joy we'll feel together with Christ in Heaven, if upon entering, we find that we helped save the souls of priests? Maybe even a bishop? Maybe even a pope!
I couldn't bring myself to read that article to the end. It reminds me of all the hogwash we were subjected to leading up to and in the wake of the publication of Amoris Laetitia. I don't know or care who wrote it, but anyone who falls for the lie that the Germans and the Pope's exemplar of a "Great Theologian", Cardinal Shoenborn, are not working hand in glove with Pope Francis can buy my bridge in the Sahara at a very good price. This is simply a variation of the smoke and mirrors circus act we've been subjected to since 2013. And the same self-styled "loyal to the Pope" Catholics will run from one hidey hole in the ground to another until they have no choice but to face reality. Then they'll do the rounds of blogs and YouTube channels flogging their books about prophecies or locutions telling us that this is just a blip on the path to a golden era for the Church. Enough already. We're in deep doo-doo, the sheep are scattered and leaderless with the great apostasy on the verge of engulfing us. If this Pope isn't condemned, the Church owes an abject apology to Pope Honorius 1. I hope I'm wrong but after eight years of this black comedy, it's time to accept the stark reality that our escape from the nightmare may be the Second Coming of Jesus. Meanwhile, we need to increase our prayers for the grace to persevere because for many it will mean hanging on to the Faith by the skin of our teeth.
There is one curious fact we find from Scripture and it keeps occurring over and over again. When the Leaders turn away from God the whole People Suffer Chastisement. Or in other words the people are judged by the actions of their Leaders. In the New Testament we see this at the Passion of Christ when the Jews said , Matthew 27:25 All the people answered, "His blood is on us and on our children!" And after the Religious and Secular authorities The Sanhedrin, the Chief Priest and the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate killed Jesus we saw the Fall of Jerusalem and the Diaspora, the Great Dispersal of the Jewish people among the Nations of the Earth. In more modern times we saw this with the Sacred Heart who warned about Satanic practices at the Royal Court. Warnings which were ignored leading to the downfall of the French Monarchy and the Institution of the French Republic. So God appears to Judge top down , so to speak in the matter of Chastisement. Which should cause a real Holy Dread at the moment when we regard goings on in the Vatican and elsewhere.... If, on the other hand we look at Secular Leaders in the West, well, we can only be filled with total horror and know that a Huge, Huge series of Chastements at the speed of a runaway Locomotive. Our Lady has warned us of these things over and over again.
This kind of Top Down Judgement of God reminds me of the words of Jesus to St Peter, our first Pope. Matthew 16:18 Peter's Confession of Christ …17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”… So St Peter is the Rock on which the entire Church rests..and if the Rock crumble? Then how can the house stand? And so we see the Hierarchical Nature of the Church that Christ founded. Even in Heaven the angels exist in a Hierarchy. Even the saints in the circles of heaven ascending to God and in the circles of hell down to Lucifer. A bad Pope is a very real calamity and presages great, great Chastisements.
True, yet when Mary comes to warn us and beg for prayers and conversion, she often goes to the lowliest of the laity---children. She doesn't appear directly to the leaders. She comes to us, the lowest, to ask for our prayers and sacrifices. We are to atone, and bring Heaven's messages to our leaders. In Fatima, Mary didn't just ask for the Holy Father and bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. She asked the laity to observe the First Five Saturdays. Did we all do that? Some of us, yes, but many did not. When she came to ask for sinners to repent and the humble laity to make sacrifices in order to avoid WWII, the Church leaders were still mostly holy, faithful, and orthodox. People did not respond as she asked, and WWII came. Mary has asked in so many apparitions for us to pray for our priests and the Holy Father. She has warned how hard Satan goes after our shepherds. They have been given more, and therefore are attacked more, and will be more held accountable. Our love for Christ and His representatives on earth compels us to pray for them with great fervor. There are so many of us... We could be a great shield of grace for them if only we all sacrificed, prayed, and turned away from our sin.
A bad pope IS the calamity. Not only does it reverberate through the Church it can literally mean the loss of souls. And then it ripples out through the whole culture. When the salt loses its savor....
Yes exactly. There are a lot of people saying St Padre Pio knew this was coming and that all this is contained in the Thrid Secret of Fatima. It would not surprise me in the least.
This is true, the call to conversion is Universal. However it is a necessity that our Leaders call the Laity to this and this is not happening. THe virus is a good example. Our Leaders, even our secular leaders should have been leading us in prayer to avert this plague. None of them ever do so. They just want us to wear maks, get injections and close the Churches as non essential.
Personal conversion is good. Essential. But collective conversion is essential too and this requires good Prophetic Leadership.
Malachi Martin was asked if JXXIII fainted when he read the secret because it said there would be a pope possessed by the devil. The caller was told this by a priest. He asked Martin if it was true. Malachi Martin said the priest must have been there. JXXIII was afraid he was that Pope so the story goes and so fainted. True? Or fabrication. We will never know i guess.
This of this Church going totally bad and a false Church being erected is contained in so many Prophesies , I' ve lost count. But it was one thing to read about it and quite another to actually see it happening before our very eyes.
Yes indeed! My point is that we can and are called to help our leaders with our prayers and sacrifices. I am as horrified as any when it comes to what is happening in our Church. I guess I'm trying to shift my focus away from condemnation, shock and hurt, to the understanding that I, too, am a sinner that needs mercy, and I must beg God's mercy for these corrupt leaders of my beloved Church as well. Really, praying for them and possibly obtaining a change of heart in some of them can only be good for us faithful, right? If God is going to send punishments because of their evil leadership, then what good does it do us to merely point our finger and say, "It's their fault!"? Only prayer, sacrifice, and atonement can save them and help us.
