Features

The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Baetzing, has called for talks as soon as possible with the Church leadership in the Vatican about the dispute over the German Synodal Path reform process.

‘The synodal process has provided a forum that was long owed to those hurt by the Church as an institution. They deserve and need the opportunity to register the wrongdoing they experienced as a necessary first step in the healing process,’ writes Professor Eamonn Conway.

Dr Despoina Afroditi Milaki is The International Presentation Association NGO Representative
at the United Nations, currently based in New York.

According to Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers of Dresden, the reform process in the Catholic Church cannot be stopped.

The Catholic bishops in Germany will be seeking a common line in the dispute over Church reforms in the coming weeks.

Four delegates of the Synodal Path Catholic reform project underway in Germany have quit the process in protest against its direction.

Theologians Helmut Hoping and Magnus Striet are on opposite sides of the argument on Church reform. In a new book, they argue whether and which reforms are necessary in the Church – and show that the problems lie deeper than thought.

Many differences became clear in the meeting but listening to one other contributed to “moving forward and growing together”, Archbishop Gintaras Grusas said at the end of the consultations at the weekend.