Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has criticised the separation of powers in the Catholic Church sought by the Synodal Path reform initiative of the Catholic Church in Germany.
From the outset, the German Synodal Path had gone in a different direction than the worldwide synodal process, Hollerich told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published online on Thursday.
The German reform consultations had addressed the allocation of power in the Church. But the Church wasn’t about power but about ministries and about serving, he said.
“When service turns into power, we have a problem,” Hollerich said. The right question, he said, was not how to share power, but how to be able to return to the concept of ministry and service.
Hollerich accused the Synodal Path of not having paid enough attention to the common synodal process underway in the Universal Church. “We need to set out together as a Catholic Church and not say, ‘We’ll do our thing and then you see what you do!’”
Looking ahead to the World Synod of Bishops starting in Rome in October, Hollerich said it would not be about homosexuality and the ordination of women, but about community, participation and mission.
“That is the theme of the Synod, and that is enough,” Hollerich said. The archbishop of Luxembourg has been appointed by the Pope as “Relator General” of the World Synod and in that capacity is in charge of coordinating its content.
The German Synodal Path was the reform project of the Catholic Church launched by the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the country’s main Catholic laypeople’s organisation, in response to the abuse scandal.
Originally reported by KNA Germany.
