“The fight for freedom is never-ending. It is therefore important for us to look beyond religious and ideological borders, to see how we can preserve this precious gift of freedom today and in the future.” The president of the German Bishops, Card. Reinhard Marx, spoke at a meeting of the Catholic Academy of the Diocese of Dresden “Moving Freedom: 1919 – 1949 – 1989 – 2019.” “Freedom is the opportunity to take on responsibility,” it is the foundation of what we call love. Without freedom, there is no love” but “coercion.” The cardinal spoke of “commitment to democracy and freedom” as something “in history we should never give up.” He explained that “the message of Sacred Scripture on the dignity and equality of every person is a foundation without which our Christian western culture could not exist.” If a secular State “does not practice religion, but organizes community life,” “in a neutral but not indifferent way,” then religion “must assume the responsibility not to sow dissent, by making its visible and active contribution to society and its cohesion.” The cardinal went on to say: “We do not need nationalism, but a new patriotism, a sense of belonging that does not exclude,” one that is “fraternal” and “cosmopolitan,” so as to “guarantee the gift of democracy.”

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising called for change in long-standing church tradition as the German bishops’ conference prepares for a workshop debate to “review” the issue of celibacy for priests.

In his homily at New Year’s Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich, Cardinal Marx said the church must, “in light of the failure” surrounding the clergy sex abuse crisis, modify tradition in response to changing modern times.

“I believe the hour has come to deeply commit ourselves to open the way of the church to renewal and reform,” Cardinal Marx said, according to an audio of the homily posted on the archdiocesan website. “Evolution in society and historical demands have made tasks and urgent need for renewal clear to see.”

The cardinal, who is president of the German bishops’ conference, said that current measures to address sex abuse are not enough without adapting church teachings. “Yes, matters are about development and improvement and prevention and independent reviews — but more is also demanded,” he said.

“I am certain that the great renewal impulse of the Second Vatican Council is not being truly led forward and understood in its depth. We must further work on that,” he said. “Further adaptations of church teachings are required.”

Despite the Vatican’s call for the US Conference of Catholic bishops not to vote in November on several proposals for responding to the sexual abuse crisis because of a lack of time given the Vatican to study the proposals and potential conflicts with church law, the German bishops plan to host numerous ecclesiastical and secular professionals from various disciplines to analyse celibacy.” Truth is not final. We can recognise it deeper in the shared path of the church,” Cardinal Marx said in his homily. He said he will take new stances on issues because it is his “duty as a priest and a bishop” to do so.

He added that Catholics must “leave behind categories like left and right, liberal and conservative and concentrate on the path of the Gospel in a concrete point in time.”

“Turn yourselves to a new thinking. To risk this thinking is important at the end of year and the beginning of a new year — not a flight into the rhetoric of the past,” he said.

“Naturally we stand in a great tradition — but this is not a complete tradition. It is a path into the future.”

One of Germany’s youngest and more recently appointed bishops has called for a thorough examination of how Church leaders exercise their authority, saying too often it does not conform with the model St Paul demanded of early Christian leaders.

“We urgently need to have a new look at the question of episcopal power and responsibility,” said Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz in an article that appeared on Dec. 31 in the German daily Kölner Stadt Anzeiger.

“And we must, on no account, allow the importance of this question to be played down, since it already preoccupied early Christian communities.”

The 51-year-old Kohlgraf, who succeeded the late Cardinal Karl Lehmann as bishop of Mainz in August 2017, said power is a considerable temptation for bishops.

Bishop Kohlgraf also admitted that the issue of sexual violence in the Church had put his faith to the test in recent months.

“I have never experienced the human and dark side of the Church so closely as in the 16 months since I became a bishop,” he said.

“A few days ago, I came across the following reflection by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn: ‘Perhaps we are too much Church and too little Christ!’

“I have given his words a great deal of thought ever since. Christ and His Church have not seldom been equated. I can still hear the following words in a sermon when I was young: ‘The Church is Christ who lives on’.” But he said if the Church is identical with Christ, then it becomes unassailable, its traditions unshakeable and its ministers — “as they represent Christ Himself” — discharged from all liability.

More than 2,000 churches have been closed and over 1,000 more face closure after Angola’s cabinet approved a new law requiring them to register with the government, including presenting at least 100,000 signatures of followers, as reported by Nairobi-based news site The East African.

A local pastor told World Watch Monitor that it was impossible to collect the required 100,000 signatures from at least 12 provinces, given they had only received a month’s notice.

By introducing the new regulations, the southern African country has followed Rwanda and Cameroon, who earlier this year announced new religious directives that have caused thousands of churches to close.

“The number of illegal churches in the country has reached 4,000,” Francisco de Castro Maria, a government director for religious matters, told the state-owned Jornal de Angola newspaper, as quoted by The East African.

The clerical abuse crisis and the “crisis of credibility” it created for the U.S. bishops have led to serious divisions within the U.S. church and to a temptation to look for administrative solutions to problems that go much deeper, Pope Francis told the U.S. bishops.

Without a clear and decisive focus on spiritual conversion and Gospel-inspired ways of responding to victims and exercising ministry, “everything we do risks being tainted by self-referentiality, self preservation and defensiveness, and thus doomed from the start,” the Pope wrote.

In a letter distributed to the bishops at the beginning of their Jan. 2-8 retreat, Pope Francis said he was convinced their response to the “sins and crimes” of abuse and “the efforts made to deny or conceal them” must be found through “heartfelt, prayerful and collective listening to the word of God and to the pain of our people.”

“As we know,” he said, “the mentality that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater harm to the network of relationships that today we are called to heal and restore.”

The “abuses of power and conscience and sexual abuse, and the poor way that they were handled” continue to harm the church and its mission, he said, but so does “the pain of seeing an episcopate lacking in unity and concentrated more on pointing fingers than on seeking paths of reconciliation.”

Such a division, which goes well beyond a “healthy” diversity of opinions, is what caused him to recommend a retreat because, the Pope said, “this situation forces us to look to what is essential and to rid ourselves of all that stands in the way of a clear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The gathering be led by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household. Pope Francis said church leaders must “abandon a modus operandi of disparaging, discrediting, playing the victim or the scold in our relationships,” and instead listen to the “gentle breeze” of the Gospel message.

Father Alain Clément Amiézi is a doctor in dogmatic theology and professor at Sacred Heart of Mary Major Seminary at Anyama in Ivory Coast. In his new book, Baptêmeet engagement prophétique pour uneÉgliseadulte en Afrique (Baptism and prophetic commitment for an adult Church in Africa), he focuses on the meaning of baptism and its implications.

“The majority of our African churches have already celebrated the centenary of the beginning of their evangelization. Logically, we should now be talking about an adult Church. But at the qualitative level, it is clear that there is still a lot of work to be done. The percentage of those who continue and who complete their Christian initiation by confirmation after the great festivities that accompany the reception of baptism is very low in several African countries today.

The number of the faithful who are truly committed in the social and political fields on the basis of Gospel virtues is infinitesimal.

We are producing baptized people but not Christians. We provide them with the sacraments without evangelizing them. The responsibilities for this situation are shared.

On one hand, in my view, it is linked to the fact that certain catechumens are requesting baptism for the wrong reasons. On the other, it is linked to the quality of the formation received.”

On the impact baptism have on the life of African Christians he said: “Prophetic commitment involves three aspects.

First, there is Christian coherence which invites us to break with the dichotomy that often exists between the life of faith and everyday life at work, school and in the family.

Christian life is not an overcoat that one can leave at the parish door and collect again when leaving. The second aspect is courageous witness. Our African countries need Christians capable of breaking with the notion that “everyone acts like that” and who are capable of living out their faith through their Christian commitment at social, economic and political level.

The third aspect is to develop a spirituality that assumes and allows Christians to courageously face up to existential problems.