An architect of Germany’s “synodal way” has explained how organizers used tactics employed successfully in politics to build pressure for change in the Catholic Church.
Thomas Sternberg said in a Dec. 2 interview that issues such as married clergy, women priests, and homosexuality were “opened up” by the initiative and were now being “discussed internationally, not only in Germany.”
Sternberg was co-president of the synodal way when it was officially launched on Dec. 1, 2019, until he stood down as president of the influential Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) in 2021.
He told the Cologne-based Catholic news website Domradio.de that the multi-year process — which brings together Germany’s bishops and select lay people to discuss power, the priesthood, women in the Church, and sexuality — was “running much more successfully” than he had first imagined.
He noted that Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, had “want-ed to stop the whole thing” three years ago.
“What is now happening here in Germany is a non-binding discussion process from the per-spective of canon law.”