Vatican, 01 March, 2023 / 12:34 pm (ACI Africa).
Despite repeated warnings from the Vatican, a letter by the president of the German Bishops’ Conference published Wednesday confirms that plans for a German synodal council are progressing.
In the letter— dated Feb. 23 and published March 1 — Bishop Georg Bätzing writes that the German bishops take the Vatican’s “concerns” about a German synodal council seriously.
The message is addressed to Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and to the prefects of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, and the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, PSS.
The German bishop tells the cardinals a German “synodal committee” would prepare a synodal council over three years. This move, Bätzing writes, is “a sign that there is still a great need for clarification regarding future synodal cooperation.”
In a four-page letter in January, the Vatican wrote “that neither the Synodal Way nor a body appointed by it nor a bishops’ conference have the competence to establish the ‘synodal council’ at the national, diocesan, or parish level.”