A woman prays in a pew at a nearly empty cathedral in Cologne, Germany, March 16, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. (CNS photo/Theodor Barth, KNA) Christoph Arens (KNA)
In the end, the Vatican budged after all. Many German catholics had not expected its decision, announced shortly before Christmas, to allow the blessing of homosexual and remarried couples.
Some reform minded catholics called it a Christmas present. For Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the decision was also a tribute to the Synodal Path reform process in Germany.
Apart from that, 2023 brought little good news. “The importance of the churches is collapsing,” the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung concluded, pointing out that 56 percent of Germans are now “religiously deaf,” according to a study by the Protestant Church and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Even among members of the Catholic Church, only four percent see themselves as “religious and close to the Church.” It is particularly disturbing that only nine percent of Germans still have faith in the Catholic Church – only Islam fared worse. The figure for the Protestant Church was 24 percent.
The number of people leaving is also alarming: a total of 522,821 Catholics turned their backs on their Church in 2022, significantly exceeding the record number of departures in the previous year.
“The trend towards leaving the Church, which has been creeping along for many decades, has gained massive momentum,” said Bishop Georg Baetzing, president of the German Bishops’ Conference. The Church would have to seek new paths if it wanted to play any role in future.
An abuse study presented in April in the archdiocese of Freiburg caused outrage: it accused the long-serving Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of multiple violations of the law. He had deliberately failed to initiate church criminal proceedings against perpetrators – and in doing so disregarded his own guidelines as president of the Bishops’ Conference. Zollitsch is said to have quietly transferred people accused or convicted of offences, so that even minors became victims.
On March 25, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrueck became the first catholic bishop in Germany to resign over mistakes made in the reappraisal of abuse. Woelki’s future as archbishop remains unclear: while Pope Francis has yet to decide on the resignation offer he asked Woelki to submit, the cardinal has made further headlines with several lawsuits this year.
At the end of June, the state prosecutor’s office even searched some of the archdiocese’s buildings amid an investigation against Woelki over allegations of perjury. On the other hand, the cardinal won several lawsuits for “defamatory false reporting” against Germany’s biggest tabloid newspaper, Bild.
Despite many warnings from Rome, the Catholic Church continued to press ahead with its Synodal Path reform project.
In November, the Synodal Committee of bishops and laypeople was established in Essen. Its task is to prepare a Synodal Council in which bishops and laypeople are to have equal decision-making powers in future. Four bishops have so far refused to participate. Meanwhile, the Vatican has declared that the Church in Germany is not authorised to establish a joint governing body of laypeople and clergy.
However, supporters of the Synodal Path believe their cause has received a boost from the Synod on Synodality convened by the pope, the first half of which ended in Rome in October. Stetter-Karp spoke of the “beginning of a cultural change” – a hope that has been strengthened by the Vatican’s decision to allow blessings for homosexual couples.