Cardinal Reinhard Marx has said Germany’s Synodal Path cannot simply end with a list of demands being sent to Rome, while also criticising “nostalgic” currents within the Church and warning that social media dynamics can benefit radical political movements including the AfD
Cardinal Reinhard Marx has said Germany’s Synodal Path cannot simply end with a list of demands being sent to Rome, while also criticising “nostalgic” currents within the Church and warning that social media dynamics can benefit radical political movements including the AfD.
In an interview with katholisch.de marking 30 years since his episcopal ordination, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising has said the Synodal Path should focus on the life of the Church in Germany, particularly within individual dioceses, rather than becoming a national mechanism for demanding changes from the Pope.
“In my view, the Synodal Path cannot end with us sending a list of demands to Rome,” Cardinal Marx said. “I don’t find that very imaginative.”
The cardinal, who was consecrated a bishop on 21 September 1996, said the starting point for the German process was the sexual abuse crisis and the publication of the 2019 MHG study into abuse within the Church.
Cardinal Marx was president of the German Bishops’ Conference when the study was published and said it became clear to His Eminence and others that the Church needed to act. The cardinal recalled agreeing with Thomas Sternberg, then-president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), that the Church needed to confront the problems revealed by the crisis and work to restore trust.
“The real starting point of the Synodal Path” was therefore the need to address the abuse crisis, Cardinal Marx said.
Looking back over three decades as a bishop, His Eminence said the reckoning with sexual abuse had been the most significant turning point of his ministry.
Continue reading at Ad Vaticanum