A public dispute has broken out between Germany’s top lay Catholic organization and a German bishop, after the organization issued a statement calling for a raft of new pastoral practices, which the bishop and other critics say are opposed to Church doctrine.

The Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken (Central Committee of the German Catholics, or ZdK) issued a statement on May 10 calling for the admittance of civilly remarried divorcees to holy Communion, acceptance of all forms of cohabitation, the blessing of same-sex couples and the reconsideration of the Church’s teaching on contraception.

The organization is heavily financed by the German bishops and overseen spiritually by Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

The ZdK’s appeals were contained in a document called “Between Teaching and Building Bridges With the Living World — Family and Church in the Modern World.” The statement, unanimously agreed upon at the organization’s general assembly in Würzburg in early May, was written in anticipation of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

The document states that nonmarital forms of lived partnerships “make a great contribution” to social cohesion and have to be “treated justly.” It goes on to say that “values” are found in other forms of communal living, which “have to be honored, even if they are not to be found in the form of the sacramental marriage.”

“We think here of enduring partnerships [cohabitation], civil marriages, as well as civilly registered partnerships [i.e., homosexual unions],” the ZdK states. The document also calls for a “re-evaluation of the methods of artificial contraception” because of a “great discrepancy between the papal magisterium and the personal conscientious decisions in the daily life of most faithful Catholics.”

The organization further calls for “blessings of same-sex partnerships, new partnerships of divorcees and for important life-changing decisions within families.”

But the document met some stiff resistance from Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, who said on his Facebook page the document was “incomprehensible.” If enacted, what the ZdK is proposing would mark a “dramatic change of much that has been valid concerning marriage and sexuality” based on holy Scripture, Tradition and the magisterium, he said.

Bishop Oster, 49, added that, through Revelation, the Church has always taught that “lived sexual practice has its only legitimate place within a marriage between a man and a woman, both of whom are open to the procreation of life and both of whom have made a bond that lasts until the death of one of the spouses.”

“This bond is called a sacrament and is strengthened with the help of God’s explicit promise to be the third party in this bond between the two,” he reminded. “He is the one who binds this relationship, who sanctifies it, makes it indissoluble and who is also again and again the source of salvation for them.”

The bishop criticized the ZdK’s emphasis on blessing same-sex couples because of the “values” they show and stressed the Bible’s teaching that any sexual relations outside of marriage are either fornication or adultery and have “very dramatic consequences for those engaging in them.”

He added that if blessings of such unions were allowed, would people supporting them only limit them to couples and not three or more people of the same sex? “Why not also bless these relationships?” he said facetiously. “They would nevertheless have lived ‘values’ within them.”

In mid-May, Bishops Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg, Gregory Hanke of Eichstätt, Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz, Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg and Friedhelm Hofmann of Würzburg published a letter in support of Bishop Oster. The letter thanked him for his opinions on the ZdK statement and stated that they agreed “wholeheartedly” with his remarks on the importance of Church teaching, especially concerning Christian marriage.

Bishop Oster said the ZdK omitted the “biblical image of man and the biblical understanding of Revelation” and that he found the lay organization’s unanimous desire to go along such a path “very troubling.”

The ZdK responded to Bishop Oster, saying on May 12 that it wasn’t proposing a new understanding of marriage but was trying to “bridge a gap” between the magisterium and “experienced reality.” ZdK’s secretary general, Stefan Vesper, said it was not meant as an attack on Church teaching, but had to be read in the context of the entire statement. He said those who wish to implement these new pastoral practices are not “turning away” from the teaching of the Church, but, rather, towards it.

 

‘True Meaning of Marriage’

Prominent German Church commentator Mathias von Gersdorff noted that the ZdK’s initial statement failed to mention the “true meaning of marriage” and that the organization has shown that it fails to adhere to the magisterium, preferring to propagate ideas more common to television soap operas. “No one needs a Catholic Church that falls to this level,” he said. “No one needs a ‘Central Committee of German Catholics’ that is no longer Catholic.” Von Gersdorff also called the ZdK’s response to Bishop Oster “a joke,” adding that it merely “repeated its own points,” and the bishop’s arguments were not engaged.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told the Register May 13 that he had “no comment” in response to the ZdK’s statement, nor to the recent decision by Germany’s bishops to amend the Church’s labor law to allow “remarried” divorcees and those in homosexual relationships to work in Church institutions. “I think it is a matter for the episcopate,” he said. German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also declined to comment.

Despite the gravity of the potential consequences on the universal Church, the reasons for the Vatican’s public silence are not immediately clear. Subsidiarity and a decentralized system of authority is probably a primary reason, yet some critics speculate that hesitation may be related to fear of jeopardizing revenues from a wealthy German Church, as well as some sympathy for the pastoral innovations favored by many in the German Church.

On May 15, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, issued a statement saying “several claims” made in the ZdK statement were “theologically unacceptable.” He added that the blessing of same-sex unions and civilly remarried couples, and the “unreserved acceptance” of cohabiting same-sex couples, was contrary to “the teaching and Tradition of the Church.” Both issues “require further theological clarification, not hasty, bold claims,” Cardinal Marx said, adding that “theological debate and an inner-ecclesial dialogue are not promoted that way.” 

However, Cardinal Marx’s May 15 intervention did not establish that he has abandoned his own promotion of changes to the Church’s pastoral practices with respect to some of the same issues. The Register has learned via well-informed, high-level sources that Cardinal Marx was recently rebuffed by Polish bishops when he proposed that the two episcopates meet in Berlin to strive for a consensus on revising the Church’s approach to marriage. The Polish bishops have been firm about their continued support for Church teaching.

Well-informed sources say that Cardinal Marx made the proposal in early May, during lunch with Polish bishops at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. The cardinal is understood to be anxious to win all-important Polish support ahead of the October synod.

Observers say this is another attempt by the German hierarchy aimed at increasing the pressure for change at the synod and carried out by bypassing the Vatican and, in particular, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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