Vatican draws line on women’s ordination and homosexuality in new letter to German bishops

Pope Francis (left), with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State in a 2020 photo. (Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

CNA Newsroom, Nov 24, 2023 / 11:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican has informed German bishops in writing that the ordination of women and changes in the Church’s teaching on homosexuality cannot be subjects of discussion in the upcoming meetings with delegates of the German Synodal Way in Rome.

The letter, dated Oct. 23, also reminded the bishops of potential disciplinary consequences for anyone defying the teaching of the Church, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

Written by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, and addressed to the secretary general of the German Bishops’ Conference, Beate Gilles, the letter was shared with all German diocesan bishops.

The document’s authenticity was verified by CNA Deutsch with the German Bishops’ Conference on Friday.

The latest in a growing list of Vatican interventions regarding the German Synodal Way, the letter was published in full on Nov. 25 by the newspaper Tagespost.

Danger of ‘parallel initiatives’

German bishops and representatives of the Roman Curia met in the Vatican in July for discussions about the German Synodal Way. These talks will continue in January, April, and July 2024. They are expected to cover ecclesiology, anthropology, morality and liturgy, and texts of the Synodal Way.

The Vatican’s letter reminded the German bishops of the Synod on Synodality underway in Rome: “Considering the course of the German Synodal Way so far, one must first realize that a universal Synodal Way is currently taking place, convened by the Holy Father.”

The letter emphasized that it was “therefore necessary to respect this path of the universal Church and to avoid the impression that parallel initiatives are underway that are indifferent to the effort to ‘journey together.’”

Line drawn on women’s ordination, homosexual acts

In light of the German Synodal Way resolving to push for the ordination of women, the letter reminded the German bishops that Pope Francis has repeatedly and “expressly reaffirmed” what St. John Paul II wrote in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis about the Church having “no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”

While quoting Pope Francis on the importance of recognizing the role and dignity of women — given “a woman, Mary, is more important than the bishops,” as the pope said in Evangelii Gaudium — the letter also warned of “disciplinary consequences” for those who contravene doctrine, including potential excommunication for “attempting to ordain a woman,” CNA Deutsch reported.

Regarding the Church’s teaching on homosexual acts, Parolin’s letter to the German bishops said this was “another issue on which a local Church has no possibility of taking a different view.”

The letter elaborated: “For even if one recognized that from a subjective point of view there may be various factors that call on us not to judge people, this in no way changes the evaluation of the objective morality of these acts.”

The Vatican’s note also referenced Pope Francis’ 2019 letter to Catholics in Germany. In it, the pope cautioned against “the great sin of worldliness and of the anti-evangelical worldly spirit.”

In January, Pope Francis was more explicit, decrying the German Synodal Way as “elitist” and “neither helpful nor serious.”

More recently, in a letter dated Nov. 10, the pope again expressed deep concerns about the German Synodal Way. He warned that steps being taken by this local Church segment threaten to diverge from the universal Church’s path, especially the Germans’ push to establish a permanent “Synodal Council,” a mix of laity and bishops to govern the Catholic Church in Germany.

Instead, Pope Francis suggested an alternative approach for the Church in Germany, emphasizing the need for prayer, penance, and adoration.

German reactions to this latest intervention from Rome will show just how much the Synodal Way’s organizers have taken the papal appeals to heart.


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34 Comments

  1. “Sins, however great and detestable they may be, are looked upon as trivial, or as not sins at all, when men get accustomed to them; and so far does this go, that such sins are not only not concealed, but are boasted of, and published far and wide…Woe to the sins of men! for it is only when we are not accustomed to them that we shrink from them: when once we are accustomed to them, though the blood of the Son of God was poured out to wash them away, though they are so great that the kingdom of God is wholly shut against them, constant familiarity leads to the toleration of them all, and habitual toleration leads to the practice of many of them…(I shall see whether the extravagance of grief did not betray me into rashness of speech)”. St. Augustine, The Enchiridion, Ch. 80

    St. Augustine, pray for Bishop Strickland, your less eloquent but equally “rash” apostolic brother.

  2. With Card Parolin’s Nov 24 letter citing sanctions if doctrine on women’s ordination and homosexually are not observed, this added strength to Pope Francis’ previous milder letter is the most noteworthy of all the previous admonitions. If, hopefully the Vatican follows through there’s reason for a guarded restoration of trust.

  3. Wait a minute!

    What about the “listening”? The “walking together”? The “development”? The “radical inclusivity”?

    If the Holy Spirit is driving this Synod, who is Bergoglio to judge the results?

    Polygamous marriages? Why not?

    Baptizing pets? For sure!

    Indulgences for wearing liederhosen? Wunderbar!

    Bergoglio has told us that the Synods are about being in tune with the Holy Spirit, even if He takes us out of our comfort zones.

    So then how can Bergoglio possibly object now?

  4. Synodaling is an eminently popular movement. Every political clique is opposed to the popular interests and, therefore, it cannot be a Synodalist organization.
    A Synodalist must be at the service of the cause. He who invoking the name of this cause is really at the service of a political clique or a “caudillo” (local political leader) is only a Synodalist by name.
    No Synodalist should presume to be more than he really is, nor should he adopt a position inferior to what his social status should be. When a Synodalist starts to think that he is more important than he really is, he is about to become one of the oligarchy.

  5. Now that we have been mollified with the reaffirmation of a bit of basic Church teaching, does this prevent the post-Synodaling promulgation of a prayer to welcome with mercy those in irregular unions? The Joy of Love Invocation? It need not mention sin. Or does this prevent the creation of a new female form of minister? Perhaps even the restoration of lay Cardinals? They could be called Cardinal Ministers?

    This pontificate is a gift to develop our understanding of the bare minimum required to uphold papal infallibility.

  6. Bishop Barron’s ‘frank’ disagreement with the Synod on Synodality’s final report, that “advances in the sciences require an evolution in the Church’s moral teaching on human sexuality” underscores an irony. Ironic in that if Pope Francis and Card Parolin are prepared to sanction the Synodale Weg German Bishops on female ordination and homosexuality, the latter noted here, then what are they to make of the Synod on Synodality’s agreement with the German Synod? Obviously, they must be consistent and oppose both Synods’ errors of judgment [please disregard my mistakes on the dates of the letter warning the German Bishops of sanction].

  7. From the 2023 Synod Synthesis Report, two items to watch for in Synod 2024:
    Part II: 9(n). “Theological and pastoral research on the access of women to the diaconate should be continued [….]” possibly to be “presented to the next Session of the Assembly.”

    Wiggle room? Will the Assembly now agonize over whether possibly “ordained” female diaconates can be separated from the three-level male ordination of deacons/priests/bishops? The history already has been demonstrated that early “deaconesses” were not a sacramental ministry. More synodal research?

    Part III: 16(p). A proposed “ministry of listening and accompaniment” partly for (16 h): “…people who feel marginalized or excluded from the Church because of their marriage status, identity or sexuality [….].”

    As of 2017, Fr. James Martin, a delegate to Synod 2023, is already a consultant to the Vatican’s Dicastery on Communication. No doubt he feels well-groomed for further elevation into the new ministry.

    Or, instead and moving forward, might the Synod more inclusively (!) rediscover the compassionate and truthful 1986 Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

    • Apparently Ratzinger’s 1986 Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons was intended to correct the ‘suggestion of permissibility’ of adult, stable homosexual relations.
      “In regard to this second category of subjects [homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct], some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life. In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people” (VIII. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. PERSONA HUMANA. DECLARATION ON CERTAIN QUESTIONS CONCERNING SEXUAL ETHICS. Franjo Cardinal Seper Prefect. 1975).
      Although the letter goes on to say such relationships cannot justify homosexual acts, its tone gives the impression of justifying the relationship. The 1986 document is unequivocal. During the present pontificate some prominent clergy who favor normalcy of adult homosexual relations have referenced the 1975 document. As we know a major issue regarding the mitigation of intrinsic evil within the Church involves clerics who favor that normalcy.

      • Yes, reduced culpability does not overturn moral theology. But, of “homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct”…what might this presumption actually mean?

        FIRST, how is it that the number of instinctive and anti-binary homosexuals is rapidly leapfrogging into larger digits, such that the predisposition is mysteriously spreading by, obviously, some means other than biological transmission and inheritance?
        SECOND, what of heterosexuals who are not married, and yet feel themselves ‘incapable of enduring a solitary life?” A still broader rewrite of exemptions from moral theology? Equity!
        THIRD, actual genome research rules out a gay gene, although there are five “markers” which still are not sufficient to determine the choice of actual behavior. https://news.yahoo.com/no-gay-gene-study-finds-180220669.html
        FOURTH, apparently the “instinct” is a function of epigenetics, an shaper comparable to the way computer software manages the computer hard drive (genetics). But, like software, the erroneous and victimizing software can be rewritten. https://www.stossbooks.com/open-letter-to-german-episcopate.html#NewScience_ApplyBrakes Courage International should not have been excluded from Synod 2023 in preference to Fr. James Martin, SJ.
        FIFTH, what then about such factors as absentee or abusive fathers, early sexual abuse, or early sexual experimentation and a porn culture? Will guru Hollerich now reveal his undisclosed “sociological and cultural foundations” for upending innate and universal natural law and, therefore, Church teachings? (Instead, “The Church is no way [!] the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” [Veritatis Splendor, n. 95]).
        SIXTH, we can gain insight from a celebrated bisexual novelist from within the LGBTQ community itself [sic political coalition]. This assessment of Andre Gide, by one of his biographers, on getting locked-in [!] by early experimentation:

        “[Gide] emphatically protests that he has not a word to say against marriage and reproduction (but then) suggests that it would be of benefit to an adolescent, before his desires are fixed, to have a love affair with an older man, instead of with a woman. . . the general principle admitted by Gide, elsewhere in his treatise, that sexual practice tends to stabilize in the direction where it has first found satisfaction; to inoculate a youth with homosexual tastes [!] seems an odd way to prepare him for matrimony [better to simply redefine “marriage”!] (Harold March, “Gide and the Hound of Heaven,” 1952).
        __________________
        Responding to the recent instructions to der Synodale Weg, what will Synod 2024 “experts” now say that is preventive of sexual derailment; that is, supportive of families, parental responsibilities, and sexual morality; and, that transcends the tail spinning “signs of the times”?

        • Good response. The notion, “definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct” is oxymoronic, so broadly stated that it doesn’t define the condition. Almost all homosexuals are inclined to say they were born that way, whereas there’s evidence that it is adoptive [elective] behavior.
          There are, however, scientifically verified rare accidents of nature, as Aquinas would say. Your allusion to elective behavior is seen by the many who are suddenly appearing analogously likened to spontaneous combustion. We find the phenomenon throughout history and where it becomes prevalent the culture collapses within itself.

  8. What seems to be the case over and over again is that PF refuses to produce or provide clarity. All these various strains of his thought wending their way through the church without clarification are causing confusion at best or mayhem, at worse. I wish that our pope would offer some much needed clarity. Where are his answers to the dubia? The problem is that he refuses to reach to any documents that are any older (and more clear) than those produced during the 1960’s. The synod seems to have been an exercise in muddying the waters; even further degrading the role of the consecrated. Anyone excited about pursuing priesthood these days has to reconcile the changing identity and importance of the priestly office itself. The safe harbor during all this experimentation, cognitive dissonance and cacophony seems to be the pre-1960’s church and one committed to the Council of Trent. Thank you God for that compass! I can only hope that the crew of the Barque would pick it up and use it as the sextant it needs to navigate the waves of this modern world. V2 and the synod seem useless — look at the “fruit”.

    • “The safe harbor during all this experimentation, cognitive dissonance and cacophony seems to be the pre-1960’s church and one committed to the Council of Trent. Thank you God for that compass! I can only hope that the crew of the Barque would pick it up and use it as the sextant it needs to navigate the waves of this modern world.”

      From the prophecies of Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser regarding “the fifth period of the Church” (commencing AD 1520):

      “During this period the Wisdom of God guides the Church in several ways: 1) by chastising the Church so that riches may not corrupt her completely; 2) by interposing the Council of Trent like a light in the darkness so that the Christians who see the light may know what to believe…”

    • Regarding PF’s refusal “to produce or provide clarity,” I believe Fr. George Rutler once remarked that one looks to Francis for a train of thought but finds a train wreck.

    • M. Tabish:

      Some very fine insights. Compare the basic modus operandi of Francis with what is set forth about a primary obligation of any faithful pope by the saintly Pius X at the very beginning of his prescient and always relevant anti-modernist encyclical Pacendi, which was gifted to the Church and the world in 1907:

      “One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called.”

      To be sure, Francis not only fails to reject profane novelties of words and false secular knowledge; he actively embraces these egregious errors and insists upon the Church doing the same, and therein lies a very sad tale.

  9. Thank the Holy Spirit that Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin are at least beginning to sound orthodox!

    But the questions remain: Why do they undermine the very orthodox Catholic teachings that they are professing to uphold now by putting and leaving in place clerics (Fernandez, Hollerich, Bätzing, McElroy, Martin, Tobin, Coyne, etc.) who openly oppose some aspects of established Catholic doctrine, while demoting good, faithful clerics (Strickland, Mueller, Burke, Sarah, Torres, etc.) who courageously uphold established Catholic doctrine?

    Until and unless Pope Francis and Cardinal Parolin back their orthodox rhetoric up by removing heterodox clergy and stop removing faithful clergy, I’m afraid their comments are all just “a noisy gong or a clanging symbol” that is devoid of any authentic meaning.

  10. I just have one compound question. Who kidnapped Francis, and where are they hiding him, and who forged this orthodox communication in his name?

  11. Is this leak merely a ploy to turn down the heat Bergoglio’s Vatican is currently taking for its negligence in defending the deposit of faith?

    One way to know is for a local bishop to make sure that every Catholic in his diocese is aware of this Vatican confirmation of orthodoxy. If doing so results in his getting removed like Strickland was, then we will know the leak was just a political ploy.

    If all the American bishops did this it would be difficult for Bergoglio to remove any of them.

    • We have what will go down in history as the “Machiavellian Papacy.” I don’t believe a word that comes out of this Vatican. It’s all so calculated and never to be taken at face value. This Pope is intent on torturing the Faithful. Truth is being sacrificed on a cross every day with this Pope and his legates.

  12. Apparently the pot was coming to a boil too soon. They’ve turned down the heat for the time being. When its convenient it will come back, and far sooner than you believe.
    It is consoling to some degree that the voice of Catholics faithful to the perennial Magisterium is being heard, though more as an alarm that Babel might tip over than as an informed theological caution.
    The bone thrown to us dogs serves the purpose intended until it is no longer deemed necessary.

    • Exactly. Plus, the very fact that those issues were being openly discussed is a win of sorts. It’s the March through the institution one step at a time.

  13. Don’t be so overjoyed! This letter could be saying “Wait, Germany, we are already doing everything you want in OUR synod, so stop trying to do it before we get it done. You can’t make these changes just in Germany, these things need to be implemented for the entire church. We will do this next year.”

    • I was whimsical with my first comment, but I completely agree with the pessimistic views of these comments above. Actually, all of these synods have been to float ideas of heterodoxy to obtain emotional acceptance in the minds of ignorant Catholics and secular media and culture. At the right time, it will seem quite acceptable to make a final push for what will seem like just a minor reform of popular approbation.

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