German bishops and representatives of the Roman Curia met in the Vatican on july 26 to continue discussions started last year about the German Synodal Way.
According to a joint statement from the Vatican and the German bishops’ conference, the July 26 meeting took place in a “positive and constructive climate” and will be followed by other encounters.
The meeting was convened, the brief statement said, following the German bishops’ November 2022 ad limina visit, when “it was agreed that the theological and disciplinary issues that emerged in particular in the ‘Synodal Way’ would be further discussed.”
The Synodal Way, which began in 2019, is a collaborative effort between the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and the German bishops’ conference.
During a concluding assembly in March, delegates overwhelmingly passed measures to change Church practices based on transgender ideology and to push the universal Church to ordain women to the sacramental diaconate.
Delegates also voted to adopt same-sex blessings, normalize lay preaching, and ask Rome to “reexamine” the discipline of priestly celibacy.