Thomas Sternberg, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, is pictured during the organization's plenary assembly in Bonn, April 23, 2021. Photo: CNS Thomas Sternberg, 69, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, announced April 23 he will not seek re-election to the post in November.
Mr Sternberg assumed the highest office of Germany’s Catholic lay organisation in 2015. The German Catholic news agency KNA reported the organisation will be forced to find new leadership in the midst of some upheaval.
The organisation is currently in the middle of dealing with the issue of clergy sexual abuse in the church. Catholic laypeople in the Archdiocese of Cologne recently called for a local synod to address the ongoing crisis surrounding how abuse was handled in Germany’s most populous diocese.
However, lay Catholics also have made strides: The German bishops’ conference elected a woman as general secretary.
Beate Gilles, a 50-year-old theologian, became the first noncleric and woman to head the bishops’ secretariat. She will take up her post July 1.