Germany’s bishops are meeting in Fulda, a town in the centre of the country, this week ahead of a crucial trip to the Vatican.
Their fall plenary meeting, which began on September 26, is dedicated to two major themes: the controversial “synodal way” and the bishops’ November ad limina visit to Rome. The stakes are high: The Vatican has repeatedly expressed misgivings about the synodal way – the multi-year German initiative bringing together bishops and lay people to discuss four main topics: power, the priesthood, women in the Church, and sexual morality.
In July, the Vatican’s Secretariat of State underlined that the synodal way has no power “to compel the bishops and the faithful to adopt new ways of governance and new approaches to doctrine and morals.”
Earlier this month, the bishops attended an acrimonious session of the synodal way at which they endorsed documents propo-sing new ways of governance and new app-roaches to doctrine and morals.
The votes pave the way for a potential showdown between the German bishops and Vatican officials in Rome.
Subscribe The nuncio emphasized that “secret voting is one of the Church’s methods, practiced for centuries in important votes, in elections of superiors in many orders and congregations, right up to the election of the Pope in a conclave.”
“A high level of approval of draft reso-lutions in a secret ballot depends on the depth of dialogue in the assembly hall and the working groups, as well as on the willingness to accept changes in the draft texts,” he said.
Eteroviæ is not a lone voice: last weekend, the Swiss Vatican official Cardinal Kurt Koch expressed alarm at the proceedings in Frankfurt. “This is the papal magisterium on the synodal way,” Francis said in July.
He has made it clear that the letter is the baseline by which the initiative will be judged. If he feels the German bishops have ignored it, they could have a frosty reception in November.