MORE GERMAN DISSENT
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Bishop's address to politicians
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TRANSCRIPT
The head of the German Bishops' Conference is calling for "courageous" change in the Church. The prelate is known for his dissent from Church teaching on a host of topics such as the all-male priesthood. Church Militant's William Mahoney looks at some key points from the bishop's address.
Bishop Georg Bätzing: "The Catholic Church is diversifying — but in very different ways and at very different speeds and partly with some unreconciled differences."
Bishop Georg Bätzing, head of the German Bishops' Conference, spoke Tuesday evening to a room of guests and roughly 200 politicians, at the 2021 St. Michael's Annual Reception in Berlin. The prelate began his address with a quote from Czech priest Tomáš Halík, a supporter of registered homosexual partnerships and interreligious prayers and meditations.
Bätzing:
The great ship of yesterday's traditional Christianity is sinking to the bottom, and we shouldn't waste time moving furniture around on the Titanic. ... If Christianity in Europe has a different future as that of a self-contained sect, it is necessary to take seriously the paschal character of earthly faith.
Touting the Synodal Way, the German prelate denounced the Vatican for recently clarifying the Church is incapable of blessing homosexual unions.
Bätzing: "While, for example, comprehensive reforms and changes are called for as part of the Synodal Way, there are admonishing words or clarifications from the Roman Curia on questions that were long ago answered in our enlightened and freedom-loving society."
The Synodal Way is a series of conferences that began in 2019 to question Church teaching on everything from the ordination of women to the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts. According to Bätzing, Pope Francis is a big supporter of the Synodal Way.
The next formal conference of the Synodal Way is slated to begin tomorrow and end on Saturday.
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