As the opening assembly of the Synodal Way is taking place in Germany, the “New Beginning” initiative has warned of a schism arising from the country. In a letter to bishops there and around the world, the organizers describe “a spirit of rebellion” at work which betrays the gospel.
In their essay “Seven questions to the Catholic Church in Germany on Freedom and Autonomy” the initiative expressed its concern that the Synodal Way proclaims a new paradigm of radical, absolute self‐determination which may lead the Church in Germany into schism.
The initiative describes itself as an association of theologians, philosophers and anthropologists who call for radical reform in the Catholic Church, but who do not consider the German Synodal Way a viable solution.
The essay says, “The focus is no longer on the Lord ‐ his word and will ‐ but on man ‐ his will, his interests, his identity, his desires, his freedom is to determine what is the matter in the Church, what still seems plausible before the tribunal of modernity … what may and may not be taught and lived.”
The initiative asks the bishops of the Catholic Church to use their influence to prevent schism: “That Pope Leo X once dismissed the theses of Martin Luther as an irrelevant ‘monks’ bickering’ was perhaps the most momentous mistake in Church history. Exactly 500 years later, the Roman Catholic Church is once again about to play down a theological debate in a not‐too‐distant country, ignore it, and consider it a German problem. The next schism in Christendom is just around the corner. And it will come again from Germany.”
In January the New Beginning initiative handed a “manifesto for reform” to Pope Francis, signed by 6,000 Catholics. It argued that the Synodal Way “abuses the abuse”, that is, it instrumentalizes the necessary and urgent discussions in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal to change the Church according to its agenda.
The initiative said that apart from the 67 bishops in Germany, around 2,000 bishops worldwide, as well as 500 Catholic congregations, institutions, and movements, have received an explanatory text titled “This is not the Gospel” and a theological invitation to a scientific debate: “Seven questions to the Catholic Church in Germany on freedom and autonomy”.
The group also added to these two documents a collection of quotes and statements of theologians and bishops in the process of the Synodal Way, and statements typical of the process which they say show “that its agenda is not compatible with the continuous teaching of the universal Church.”
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Hungarian President Katalin Novak addresses a joint press conference with the Polish president after talks in Warsaw, Poland, on May 17, 2022. / Credit: Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
Budapest, Hungary, Feb 10, 2024 / 17:25 pm (CNA).
Kat… […]
Amanda Achtman’s last photo with her grandfather, Joseph Achtman. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Amanda Achtman
CNA Staff, Nov 5, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the Canadian government began discussing the legalization of euthanasia for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” 32-year-old Amanda Achtman said something in her began to stir. Her grandfather was in his mid-90s at the time and fit the description.
“There were a couple of times, toward the end of his life, that he faced some truly challenging weeks and said he wanted to die,” Achtman recalled. “But thank God no physician could legally concede to a person’s suicidal ideation in such vulnerable moments. To all of our surprise — including his — his condition and his outlook improved considerably before his death at age 96.”
Achtman said she and her grandfather were able to have a memorable final visit that “forged her character and became one of the greatest gifts he ever gave me.”
The experience of walking with her grandfather in his last days led Achtman to work that she believes is a calling. On Aug. 1, she launched a multifaceted cultural project called Dying to Meet You, which seeks to “humanize our conversations and experiences around suffering, death, meaning, and hope.” This mission is accomplished through a mix of interviews, short films, community events, and conversations.
“This cultural project is my primary mission, and I am grateful to be able to dedicate the majority of my energy to it,” Achtman told CNA.
Early years
Achtman was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She grew up in a Jewish-Catholic family with, she said, “a strong attachment to these two traditions that constitute the tenor of my complete personality.”
Her Polish-Jewish grandfather, with whom she had a very close relationship as a young adult, had become an atheist because of the Holocaust and was always challenging her to face up to the big questions of mortality and morality.
“One of the ways I did this was by traveling on the March of Remembrance and Hope Holocaust study trip to Germany and Poland when I was 18,” Achtman said. “My experiences listening to the stories of Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations have undeniably forged my moral imagination and instilled in me a profound sense of personal responsibility.”
Shortly after her grandfather’s death, Achtman discovered a new English-language master’s program being offered in John Paul II philosophical studies at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland.
“Immediately, I felt as though God were saying to me, ‘Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you — it’s Poland.’ At the time, the main things I knew about Poland were that the Holocaust had largely been perpetrated there and that Sts. John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, and Faustina were from there,” Achtman explained. “I wanted to be steeped in a country of saints, heroes, and martyrs in order to contemplate seriously what my life is actually about and how I could spend it generously in the service of preventing dehumanization and faithfully defending the sanctity of life in my own context.”
The rise of euthanasia in Canada
In 2016, the Canadian government legalized euthanasia nationwide. The criterion to be killed in a hospital was informed consent on the part of an adult who was deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable condition.”
“The death request needed to be made in writing before two independent witnesses after a mandatory time of reflection. And, consent could be withdrawn any time before the lethal injection,” Achtman explained.
Then, in 2021, the Canadian government began to remove those safeguards. “The legislative change involved requiring only one witness, allowing the possible waiving of the need for final consent, and the removal, in many cases, of any reflection period,” Achtman told CNA.
“Furthermore, a new ‘track’ was invented for ‘persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable.’ This meant that Canadians with disabilities became at greater risk of premature death through euthanasia. Once death-by-physician became seen as a human right, there was practically no limit as to who should ‘qualify.’ As long as killing is seen as a legitimate means to eliminate suffering, there is no limit to who could be at risk.”
Euthanasia — now called medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada — is set to further expand on March 17, 2024, to those whose sole underlying condition is “mental illness.” Last year, Dr. Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians and Surgeons testified before a special joint committee that his organization thinks euthanasia should be expanded to infants with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe syndromes.”
Renewing the culture
Achtman followed the debates around end-of-life issues in Canada and wanted to figure out a way to restore “a right response to the reality of suffering and death in our lives.”
“The fact is, our mortality is part of what makes life precious, our relationships worth cherishing, and our lives worth giving out of love. That’s why we need to bring cultural renewal to death and dying, restoring our understanding of its meaning to the human condition.”
On Jan. 1, 2021, Achtman made a new year’s resolution to blog about death every single day for an entire year in a way that was “hope-filled and edifying.”
It ended up being very fruitful to Achtman personally, but she said “it also touched a surprising number of people, inspiring them to take concrete actions in their own lives that I could not have anticipated.”
The experience, Achtman said, made her realize that it’s possible to contribute to cultural renewal through things like coffee shop visits, informal interviews, posting on social media, being a guest on podcasts and webinars, organizing community events, and making videos.
“Basically, there are countless practical and ordinary ways that we can humanize the culture — wherever we are and whatever we do the rest of the time.”
The Dying to Meet You project
When it comes to the mission of Dying to Meet You, Achtman told CNA that “God has put on my heart two key objectives: the prevention of euthanasia and the encouragement of hope” and added that “the aim of this cultural project is to improve our cultural conversation and engagement around suffering, death, meaning, and hope through a mix of interviews, writing, videos, and events.”
Achtman said the project is an experiment in the themes Pope Francis speaks about often — encounter, accompaniment, going to the peripheries, and contributing to a more fraternal spirit.
“There is a strong basis for opposition to euthanasia across almost all religions and cultures, traditionally speaking,” Achtman said. “Partly from my own upbringing in a Jewish-Catholic family, I am passionate about how the cultural richness of such a plurality of traditions in Canada can bolster and enrich our value of all human life.”
To that end, one of the projects Achtman has in the works is a short film on end of life from an Indigenous perspective to be released mid-November.
“It’s not so much that we have a culture of death as we now seem to have death without culture,” said Achtman, who hopes her efforts will help change that.
An inspiring hometown event
This past Sept. 23, Achtman organized a daylong open-house-style event called “The Church as an Expert in Humanity” in her home city of Calgary, which took place at Calgary’s Cathedral, the Cathedral Hall, and the Catholic Pastoral Centre. The morning featured a ministry hall of exhibits with 18 table displays of ministries throughout the diocese doing the best work on suffering, death, grief, and caregiving. In the afternoon, there were three-panel presentations.
The first involved Catholics of diverse cultural backgrounds speaking about hospitality and accompaniment in their respective traditions. It included a Filipino diaconal candidate, a Ukrainian laywoman working with refugees, an elderly Indigenous woman who is a community leader, and an Iraqi Catholic priest.
The second was called “Tell Me About the Hour of Death,” where participants heard from two doctors, a priest, and a longtime pastoral care worker.
The third panel focused on papal documents pertaining to death, hope, and eternal life. A Polish Dominican sister who has worked extensively with the elderly spoke about John Paul II’s “Letter to the Elderly.”
Later, an evening program was held in Calgary’s Catholic Cathedral and included seven short testimonies by different speakers that “were narratively framed as echoes of the Seven Last Words of Christ.” Among the speakers were a privately sponsored Middle Eastern Christian refugee, a L’Arche core member who has a disability, and a young father whose daughter only lived for 38 minutes. Afterward, Calgary’s Bishop William McGrattan gave some catechesis on the Anima Christi prayer, with a special emphasis on the line “In your wounds, hide me.”
“The day was extremely uplifting and instilled the local Church with confidence that the Church indeed is an expert in humanity, capable of meeting Christ in all who suffer with a gaze of love and the steadfast insistence, ‘I will not abandon you,’” Achtman told CNA.
Our lives are not wholly our own
Many believe euthanasia is compassionate care for those who suffer. Shouldn’t we be able to do what we want with our own lives? And can suffering have any meaning for someone who doesn’t believe in God?
Achtman said these questions remind her of something Mother Teresa said: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” as well as the John Donne quote “Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.”
“Our lives are not wholly our own and how we live and die affects the communities to which we belong,” Achtman said. “That is not a religious argument but an empirical observation about human life. If someone lacks ties and is without family and social support, then that is the crisis to which the adequate response is presence and assistance — not abandonment or hastened death. As one of my heroes, Father Alfred Delp, put it, a suffering person makes an ongoing appeal to your inner nobility, to your sacrificial strength and capacity to love. Don’t miss the opportunity.”
The mission continues
Achtman also organized a “Mass of a Lifetime,” a special Sunday Mass for residents of a local retirement home, on Oct. 15.
“I was inspired by a quotation of Dietrich von Hildebrand, who said: ‘Wherever anything makes Christ known, there nothing can be beautiful enough,’” Achtman said. “Applying that spirit to this Mass, we made it as elaborate as possible to show the seniors that they are worth the effort.”
Achtman also recently produced a four-minute short film about an 88-year-old woman named Christine who got a tattoo that says “Don’t euthanize me.” It can be viewed here:
Throughout 2023-2024, Achtman told CNA, she is basing herself in four different Canadian cities for three months each “in order to empower diverse faith and cultural communities in the task of preventing euthanasia and encouraging hope.” She started in her hometown of Calgary and is off to Vancouver this month.
In addition to her work with the Dying to Meet You project, Achtman does ethics education and cultural engagement with Canadian Physicians for Life and works to promote the personalist tradition with the Hildebrand Project.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Helen in the Diocese of Brentwood, Essex (UK). / Historic England Archive
Brentwood, England, Jul 14, 2022 / 02:11 am (CNA).
Brentwood Cathedral, the first classical cathedral to be built in… […]
7 Comments
May I suggest a motto for the schismatic Bishops of Germany who are running as fast as they can toward the Martin Luther-synodal way, Part 2. “Anything goes, who are we to It’s clear that what these Bishops are peddling is not Catholicism in any form. I wonder if this is not the clear reason why so many Catholics have opted out of declaring themselves Catholic in Germany, for the purposes of tax support of the church. Effectively the church has left the people, not the other way around.Why WOULD they support it? In Germany they can vote with their tax dollars, and the Bishops are losing. There is no reason for these “catholic” Bishops to strain their brains re-inventing the theological wheel with a self-justifying synod. They can more easily convert to Lutheranism or any other protestant sect of their choice. The Pope would be smart to call in these Bishops for a private meeting sooner rather than later, and mince no words. If however he somehow supports their agenda, he can expect to leave behind millions of devout traditional catholics, who will not play along.They will not support the normalization of immorality which is being proposed, and their wallets will remain with them. Maybe to go THEIR own way, which may include a Latin Mass??
I’ve been beating a dead horse on this…where is our illustrious Pope, ‘Mal’?
Since Amoris Laetitia, the German Church has gone its own way especially with the Holy Eucharist and, now, on sexuality. To date, Pope Francis has said nothing and has even encouraged the German bishops.
Is Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich not to be corrected?
To repudiate doctrine is to deny Christ and His promise what is bound on Earth is bound in Heaven and that the Gates of Hell will not prevail.
Either the Church has definitive teachings or Christ did not establish a Church.
One Reformation was one too many already. Just excommunicate all the Schismatics in Germany and let them form their own Church, the Synodal Church, were believe in God and His Commandments is optional, homosexual relations are just as good (if not superior) to heterosexual relations, and the only Dogma is that you must pay the Church tax.
Some factual differences between the time of Luther and the moral and ecclesial crisis of so-called modernity. So, three points and a question:
FIRST, in the 16th century, in addition to being inattentive, the papacy was distracted by Europe’s eastern frontier and the external incursions of Islam. Today, distracted by the internal sexual abuse crisis and global COVID, the papacy proposes fraternity, a message offering only limited cause for optimism.
SECOND, today the internal threat of a mainstreamed homosexual agenda not only violates Christian (and Natural Law) morality, but is based on a falsified statement of the problem. We hear the non-infallible opinion that “God made you that way.” Whereas, homosexuality is spreading even as this affliction, by its very nature, does NOT biologically reproduce itself…
Needed then, from the real Church, is non-accommodating witness “in season and out of season:” The underlying (lying!) affliction is sexual abuse within families (!), child pornography, early-age sexual experimentation, predation, and media grooming. That civil society has sold out to pretended moral neutrality is a compounding abuse. As is the Church’s synodal Vademecum which inclusively invites all manner of marginalized groups, but curiously overlooks “families.”
THIRD, absolutely false is the insinuated theological proposition that while moral doctrines will never be actually denied by today’s Church mouthpieces, this morality can be selectively suspended—especially for homosexual behavior (not to be confused with inclinations). Condemned to the dustbin of “rigid” history are the fully human meaning of the Incarnation, the enriched Natural Law, and especially the clarity of Veritatis Splendor! Instead, it’s all about amnesiac holding hands in the dark and “walking together”…
The QUESTION on the big screen is this:
Where is the perennial Catholic Church, and where are the successors of the apostles, at this historic moment when modernity is NOT modern (!), but instead is simply mimicking the internal collapse of Greece, Rome and Christendom, and even the Muslim Ottoman Empire—all due to, or accelerated by moral corruption and perversion?
The socalled reformation was a revolt. Under that revolt legions of «popes» emerged.
This pullutation of new authority based on an anthropocentric theme fed into the political and cultural nationalist mood of the times and the concept of «national» Christianity took shape. The theme never went away. It is therefore small surprise it has re emerged where it has. Germany is once again engaged in «overthinking».
Schism is a persistent itch.
Despite that historical time frames differ, the primary issue remains the same. Luther was confronted by Cardinal Cajetan but mainly on papal authority, whereas the underlying issue was justification. Although Luther raised the key issue with Cajetan, “In Cajetan’s view the key issues were Luther’s denial that the church is empowered to distribute as indulgences the infinite treasury of merits accumulated by Christ on the cross. Luther insisted that faith is indispensable for justification” (Britannica). A reconciliation seems possible if we examine Luther’s premise of the preeminence of faith in relation to works, which Catholicism also realizes.
Germany’s Synodal Way is on the path of a Protestant reformation. Antecedent is the premise of Amoris Laetitia that a man is reconciled to God through faith not objective acts, “Conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the demands of the Gospel. It can recognize with honesty what for now is the most generous response given to God, and come to see with moral security that it is what God is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits” (Amoris 303).
We need simply recognize the enormity of the Fr Peter Hullermann case dragging in, unfairly in this writer’s opinion Benedict XVI, and the series of morally blind decisions from Essen 1979 to Munich 1986 suggesting a coterie of homosexuality sympathetic bishops. As exists today at the Vatican. Germany, on the theology of justification, and consequently, on synodality takes its cues from Rome.
Does the universal Church have cause for trepidation? That it does is increasingly evident in the universal Synod on synodality agendas being proposed on homosexuality [Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ who leads the pan-European Catholic bishops’ conference, has called for a change in the church’s teaching on homosexuality], priestly ordination [viri probati], female ordination. And, shockingly the blasphemous atheist that Francis doesn’t exclude from the Communion of Saints.
Wit due reverence: in all this danger schism where is heard a clear teaching of Faith ? The world is thirsting for Jesus! For the sake of clarity in doctrine and the well being of a living Faith, it is necessary to enunciate the doctrines of our faith without equification or fussines ! Where is the voice of correction ?
May I suggest a motto for the schismatic Bishops of Germany who are running as fast as they can toward the Martin Luther-synodal way, Part 2. “Anything goes, who are we to It’s clear that what these Bishops are peddling is not Catholicism in any form. I wonder if this is not the clear reason why so many Catholics have opted out of declaring themselves Catholic in Germany, for the purposes of tax support of the church. Effectively the church has left the people, not the other way around.Why WOULD they support it? In Germany they can vote with their tax dollars, and the Bishops are losing. There is no reason for these “catholic” Bishops to strain their brains re-inventing the theological wheel with a self-justifying synod. They can more easily convert to Lutheranism or any other protestant sect of their choice. The Pope would be smart to call in these Bishops for a private meeting sooner rather than later, and mince no words. If however he somehow supports their agenda, he can expect to leave behind millions of devout traditional catholics, who will not play along.They will not support the normalization of immorality which is being proposed, and their wallets will remain with them. Maybe to go THEIR own way, which may include a Latin Mass??
I’ve been beating a dead horse on this…where is our illustrious Pope, ‘Mal’?
Since Amoris Laetitia, the German Church has gone its own way especially with the Holy Eucharist and, now, on sexuality. To date, Pope Francis has said nothing and has even encouraged the German bishops.
Is Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich not to be corrected?
To repudiate doctrine is to deny Christ and His promise what is bound on Earth is bound in Heaven and that the Gates of Hell will not prevail.
Either the Church has definitive teachings or Christ did not establish a Church.
One Reformation was one too many already. Just excommunicate all the Schismatics in Germany and let them form their own Church, the Synodal Church, were believe in God and His Commandments is optional, homosexual relations are just as good (if not superior) to heterosexual relations, and the only Dogma is that you must pay the Church tax.
Some factual differences between the time of Luther and the moral and ecclesial crisis of so-called modernity. So, three points and a question:
FIRST, in the 16th century, in addition to being inattentive, the papacy was distracted by Europe’s eastern frontier and the external incursions of Islam. Today, distracted by the internal sexual abuse crisis and global COVID, the papacy proposes fraternity, a message offering only limited cause for optimism.
SECOND, today the internal threat of a mainstreamed homosexual agenda not only violates Christian (and Natural Law) morality, but is based on a falsified statement of the problem. We hear the non-infallible opinion that “God made you that way.” Whereas, homosexuality is spreading even as this affliction, by its very nature, does NOT biologically reproduce itself…
Needed then, from the real Church, is non-accommodating witness “in season and out of season:” The underlying (lying!) affliction is sexual abuse within families (!), child pornography, early-age sexual experimentation, predation, and media grooming. That civil society has sold out to pretended moral neutrality is a compounding abuse. As is the Church’s synodal Vademecum which inclusively invites all manner of marginalized groups, but curiously overlooks “families.”
THIRD, absolutely false is the insinuated theological proposition that while moral doctrines will never be actually denied by today’s Church mouthpieces, this morality can be selectively suspended—especially for homosexual behavior (not to be confused with inclinations). Condemned to the dustbin of “rigid” history are the fully human meaning of the Incarnation, the enriched Natural Law, and especially the clarity of Veritatis Splendor! Instead, it’s all about amnesiac holding hands in the dark and “walking together”…
The QUESTION on the big screen is this:
Where is the perennial Catholic Church, and where are the successors of the apostles, at this historic moment when modernity is NOT modern (!), but instead is simply mimicking the internal collapse of Greece, Rome and Christendom, and even the Muslim Ottoman Empire—all due to, or accelerated by moral corruption and perversion?
The relator general of the Synod on Synodality, the well-positioned Cardinal Hollerich, has already witlessly signaled the likely, predetermined and corrupt outcome of his synodal “synthesis” in 2023. https://www.aol.com/news/liberal-cardinal-calls-revised-catholic-135429645-181222377.html
The socalled reformation was a revolt. Under that revolt legions of «popes» emerged.
This pullutation of new authority based on an anthropocentric theme fed into the political and cultural nationalist mood of the times and the concept of «national» Christianity took shape. The theme never went away. It is therefore small surprise it has re emerged where it has. Germany is once again engaged in «overthinking».
Schism is a persistent itch.
Despite that historical time frames differ, the primary issue remains the same. Luther was confronted by Cardinal Cajetan but mainly on papal authority, whereas the underlying issue was justification. Although Luther raised the key issue with Cajetan, “In Cajetan’s view the key issues were Luther’s denial that the church is empowered to distribute as indulgences the infinite treasury of merits accumulated by Christ on the cross. Luther insisted that faith is indispensable for justification” (Britannica). A reconciliation seems possible if we examine Luther’s premise of the preeminence of faith in relation to works, which Catholicism also realizes.
Germany’s Synodal Way is on the path of a Protestant reformation. Antecedent is the premise of Amoris Laetitia that a man is reconciled to God through faith not objective acts, “Conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the demands of the Gospel. It can recognize with honesty what for now is the most generous response given to God, and come to see with moral security that it is what God is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits” (Amoris 303).
We need simply recognize the enormity of the Fr Peter Hullermann case dragging in, unfairly in this writer’s opinion Benedict XVI, and the series of morally blind decisions from Essen 1979 to Munich 1986 suggesting a coterie of homosexuality sympathetic bishops. As exists today at the Vatican. Germany, on the theology of justification, and consequently, on synodality takes its cues from Rome.
Does the universal Church have cause for trepidation? That it does is increasingly evident in the universal Synod on synodality agendas being proposed on homosexuality [Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ who leads the pan-European Catholic bishops’ conference, has called for a change in the church’s teaching on homosexuality], priestly ordination [viri probati], female ordination. And, shockingly the blasphemous atheist that Francis doesn’t exclude from the Communion of Saints.
Wit due reverence: in all this danger schism where is heard a clear teaching of Faith ? The world is thirsting for Jesus! For the sake of clarity in doctrine and the well being of a living Faith, it is necessary to enunciate the doctrines of our faith without equification or fussines ! Where is the voice of correction ?