Delegates at the fifth assembly of the German Synodal Way, meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 11, 2023, applaud after the he passage of a text calling for changes to the German Church’s approach to gender identity. / Jonathan Liedl/National Catholic Register
Frankfurt, Germany, Mar 11, 2023 / 07:30 am (CNA).
Delegates of the German Synodal Way on Saturday overwhelmingly passed measures to change Church practices based on transgender ideology and to push the universal Church to ordain women to the sacramental diaconate.
The votes took place on the final day of the process’ concluding assembly, held in Frankfurt March 9-11. On previous days, delegates voted overwhelmingly to adopt same-sex blessings, normalize lay preaching, and ask Rome to “reexamine” the discipline of priestly celibacy.
While the Germans pushed forward with these controversial measures, the assembly held back from crossing a line laid down by the Vatican concerning the establishing synodal councils at the national, diocesan, and parochial levels. The Vatican has said the synodal council model, which involves shared governance between bishops and the laity, is not consistent with Catholic ecclesiology.
The synodal assembly decided to delay voting on the proposal. Instead, it will be considered by a newly established synodal committee over the next three years, while Synodal Way leadership attempts to change the minds of Vatican officials and garner more widespread approval in the universal Church.
At the concluding press conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the bishops’ conference, said that the results give a mandate to the bishops to make some changes in Germany now while pushing for broader reform.
“The Church is visibly changing, and that is important,” Bätzing said.
Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), said the results show that the synodal path in Germany will continue.
“It does not end here. It is just the beginning,” she said.
Observers, including 103 international bishops who signed a letter warning that the Synodal Way could lead to schism, have expressed concern about the heterodox ideas promoted by the process and the effect it could have on the wider Church if the Vatican does not sufficiently intervene.
Vote on gender ideology
The implementation text “Dealing with gender diversity” passed with support from 96% of the 197 voting delegates. Thirty-eight bishops voted for it, while only seven voted against it. Thirteen abstained from voting.
Consistent with a pattern running throughout the assembly, there would have been enough votes to block the measure if those abstaining had voted against it. Critics of the Synodal Way say that organizers’ removal of the secret ballot has created a fear-driven atmosphere that has prohibited many bishops from voting freely.
The resolution calls for “concrete improvements for intersex and transgender faithful,” including changing baptism records to match someone’s self-identified gender, banning one’s gender identity from consideration for pastoral ministerial roles, and mandatory education for priests and church employees to “deal with the topic of gender diversity.” Intersex refers to people born with mixed sexual characteristics.
The text also bars “external sexual characteristics” from being used as a criterion for “accepting a man as a candidate for the priesthood,” a measure that could open the door for attempted ordinations of women.
During the debate, a small minority of bishops voiced opposition to the measure, while emphasizing that the Church should improve its pastoral care of those identifying as transgender. Auxiliary Bishop Stefan Zekorn of Bistum Münster said he could not support a text based on gender ideology, while Bishop Stefen Oster of Passau said that the document failed to emphasize that a Christian’s primary identity should be rooted in Jesus Christ.
But the vast majority of those who spoke expressed support for the measure. Gregor Podschun, the head of the heterodoxical Federation of German Catholic Youth, said the claims of gender ideology were “a scientific fact,” and that the Church’s denial was causing people to commit suicide. Julianne Eckstein, a professor of theology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, claimed that the book of Genesis was an inadequate basis for questions of sexual anthropology. And Viola Kohlberger, a young adult from Augsburg, said that there is no “norm” for gender and that the tradition of the Catholic Church was holding back progress.
“And I would like to break it today,” she said.
When the vote passed, delegates stood to applaud, while some unfurled rainbow flags expressing support for homosexuality and transgender ideology.
Support for women’s ordination
Delegates passed the implementation text “Women in sacramental ministry: Perspectives for the universal Church dialogue” by a similarly large margin. Only 10 of 58 bishops voted against the measure, which calls for the German bishops to advance the issue of the sacramental ordination of women at the continental and universal level of the Church.
A motion adopted by the assembly replaced a call for the establishment of a “sacramental diaconate of women” with “opening the sacramental diaconate for women.” The distinction made clear that the Synodal Way is pushing for women to be integrated into already existing holy orders, an idea the Church has repeatedly affirmed is impossible.
Delegates adopted another motion that modified priorities related to the all-male priesthood, calling for the practice to be simply reexamined, rather than ended, at the universal level of the Church. Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising said that the motion was needed to “build consensus” for changes to the Church’s dogmatic teaching related to the priesthood.
Others were less interested in the slow approach. Several women delegates were seen in tears after the vote, saddened that the text did not more explicitly call for female priests.
“Discriminating against someone because of their gender must be put to an end in the Catholic Church,” said delegate Susanne Schumacher-Godemann.
“The patriarchy needs to be destroyed,” added Podschun.
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg spoke up in opposition to the text, characterizing the push for ordaining women to the diaconate as “a first step toward opening up” the priesthood and the episcopacy, too.
The Regensburg bishop, a close friend of Pope Benedict XVI, is one of only three German bishops to have publicly voted against each of the Synodal Way’s controversial texts.
The synodal assembly also elected 20 members to the transitory synodal committee that will work over the next three years to prepare for the establishment of a permanent synodal council at the national level. The 20 elected members, which consisted of 19 laypeople and one auxiliary bishop, will join the 27 bishops who head dioceses and 27 members of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) already on the committee.
The Synodal Way, which began in 2019, has been a collaborative effort between the ZdK and the German bishops’ conference.
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“I don’t bless a homosexual marriage, I bless two people who love each other and I also ask them to pray for me.” Ruffled at our hypocrisy, His Holiness sticks to his guns. Righteous indignation or moral schizophrenia?
Exploitive entrepreneurs, what about them he queries? Why the difference hypocrites? After all Francis suggests, these are loving people. Isn’t that all that matters? We can put aside disordered behavior, called an abomination that transgresses natural law, behavior Christ identifies unworthy of heaven.
Nonetheless, Francis’ logic follows that we should knowingly bless any and all sinners for their friendships, confirm the love they have for eachother, and ask them to pray for us. Surely novel and paradigmatic.
“Righteous indignation or moral schizophrenia?”
Rhetorical question?
Yes. The comment is a satire.
Once upon a time, public sinners were required to do public penance before their sins were absolved and they received sacramental grace -blessing public sinners without confession and penance is the ultimate “hypocrisy”.
Michael, there has to be at least a manifest desire or interest to repent. The priest can bless the good intent of a prospective penitent. My comment above is sarcasm, in the event it was misunderstood.
Exactly!
We read: “Pope Francis this week again defended the Vatican’s controversial document authorizing blessings for same-sex couples [!], with the Holy Father arguing that humans [persons as such?] ‘must all respect each other’ and stating that blessings should be extended to ‘everyone’.”
Everyone as in Every One? Working both sides of the street, he equates blessing of individual “persons” with blessing not of persons but of “couples.” Case in point:
“Always in confessions [individuals?], when these situations arrive, homosexual people, remarried people, I always pray and bless,” he continued. “The blessing [so now it IS a sacramental blessing?] is not to be denied to anyone [as in Any One?] Everyone, everyone [as in Every One?]. Mind you, I am talking about people: those [individual persons?] who are capable of receiving baptism” Francis continued [say what?].
As in blessing every prostitute and her pimp. Or every wifebeater committed to continuing with wifebeating and his submissive wife. wiWhat could be wrong with any of this?
It is now long witnessed how leftists in the secular and ostensibly “religious” realms level accusations against those who resist their deconstructionism with charges that perfectly characterize themselves.
Hypocrisy indeed…his lack of self awareness goes over the boarder into mental disorder. Should anyone regard that as disrespectful it could be said that it provides him some pity. After all, it could just be bold nefariousness.
I’ve often thought that mental illness could be the most charitable interpretation in his case, but the episodes of mendacity are too calculating in their cynical manipulation. He is both a Peronist and an admirer of the late Cdl. Martini by his own admission. He has denied the bedrock faith principle of immutable truth many times. I hoped he would finally get a wakeup call from this FS arrogance launched just before Christmas, which placed a damper on the joy of the season for millions. Nope. It was launched one day after his birthday in the tradition of tyrants where particularly autocratic measures are performed to honor the dictator. I believe he is as bad as he seems.
“I believe he [PF] is as bad as he seems.”
You are not alone, dear Edward, in that godly discernment.
The alarm bells are waking up many a faithful & discerning Catholic. Even some of the episcopal hierarchy are opening their eyes to the anti-Apostolic pronouncements. Praise God, they’ll do more than just play politics and will organize themselves to do something constructive to keep the core truths of Catholicism intact until we have a godly Pope again.
It won’t be long for our LORD Jesus Christ promised to be with us to the end of time.
Dr. Rice, Please email me. Doing research on RCism. You seem lije a serious guy. JeffreyLahman@gmail.com
The only problem with “blessing” a couple an extramarital sexual relationship is that this is not a Christian practice.
God is love. Sin is not love. To call sin love is a lie, and the father of lies is Satan.
1 John 4:8, John 8:44, Matthew 16:23
Dear Pontiff Francis:
I am pleased to pope-splain you to yourself: “The Pontiff is NOT blessing a gay marriage, he’s only means that he is just spontaneously blessing people united in the sexually abusive act of sodomy. And he would likewise spontaneously bless any two people (two for now) who were united in other kinds of sexually abusive behavior. These other kinds will include for example “polyamorous unions,” which blessings had to be set aside for later promotion at subsequent “synods,” even though the Pontiff was pleased to see thst they were given explicit mention in his Synod working documents.”
And a final passing note regarding unwarranted fesrs of hypocrisy, because in our prevailing post-Christian, neo-pagan cult, it is impossible to be hypocritical, because hypocrisy is defined as “the tribute vice pays to virtue.” Now that Christian virtue is officially passe in Rome, there is no reason for anyone in leadership to pretend to give it homage.
No hypocrisy is possible anymore. A new PR jargon is in order.
Nicely done, Chris in Maryland.
The one standard that leftists like Bergoglio always fail to live up to is their own.
Sorry. Can’t get past the title.
Lord help us.
The Pope made a false parallel. He’s reported as saying that “I don’t bless a ‘homosexual marriage. . . I bless two people who love each other.”
He then makes a false parallel by saying that this is no different than blessing an entrepreneur who may exploit people. The problem is that the entrepreneur who is receiving the blessing is not even remotely in the act of exploiting anyone at the moment that he’s being blessed.
However, would the Pope bless the entrepreneur while he’s in his office either exploiting people or about to exploit people? The context is critical.
Right-on, dear Steve.
No financier presents themselves for a blessing on the basis that they are engaged in sin.
One witnesses shared:
Francis’ answer to Credere also appears to misrepresent both Fiducia Supplicans and the opposition which it has received. In the preview of his answers provided to the press, the Pope presents a scenario of blessing an individual on his own, whilst Fiducia Supplicans expressly speaks about the blessing of “couples.”
His complaint has already been swiftly criticized by clergy and lay commentators as being a “straw man” argument, for he was defending a form of blessing – of an individual on his own – which no one was opposing.
Years ago, I read that the demons do everything they can to incite man to sin, but when it comes to the sin of sodomy, the act is so heinous, that once it commences, even the demons leave because, by their angelic nature, it is too revolting to behold or endure.
PF, Biblical scholar that he is, consistently overlooks the recorded fact that God Himself nuked two cities off the face of the earth on account of this sin. I beg God have mercy on him.
The scandal is not in giving a blessing to a “homosexual” – it is in giving one to a same-sex “couple” jointly, so as to give the impression that their “relationship” / “marriage” / “union” is being blessed.
Re ‘I bless two people who [think / presume they] love each other’ – some may wonder if the [‘old-fashioned’] reference to ‘two’ is simply the thin end of the wedge for (say) https://www.yahoo.com/news/meet-people-quads-foursome-relationships-223200950.html
See the string of comments that I posted below the article at https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/02/01/living-with-same-sex-attraction-in-the-aftermath-of-fs/ to reflect on possible ways to tone down the confusion.
Recommended reading – “I Made a Promise to God” by Regis Martin about Fr. Fessio of Ignatius Press in Today’s Crisis Magazine stop.
For which Jesuit do you have more respect?
I hate to bring this up but what of 3 people who say they love each other? Love is love…
A family member used to work with offenders in a correctional facility . Child molesters stated that they loved their victims and offered them real affection that had been lacking in the child’s family. Usually broken families.
Once you stray from a biblical perspective, almost anything can be rationalized.
Totally legitimate point. What if a “minor attracted adult” and a minor are involved in a consensual “loving”relationship? Would they be blessed as a couple? If not, why not?
Well, speaking of judgmental hypocrites. I just don’t pay attention anymore to his pronouncements and pretzel logic.
As the song says,”give me some of that ole time religion…”
Amen.
It’s good enough for me.
🙂
Walter Brennan as Pastor Rosier Pile, earnestly sang it in Sergeant York while converting Alvin.
The Pope keeps trotting out the straw man argument that, “moral perfection” is not required. It’s a thinly veiled shot at his favorite targets of castigation, those “rigid, legalistic, backwardist” Catholics who still bother with moral theology. This straw man appeals to people’s fallen sensibilities which chafe at being called to holiness and dealing honestly with their sins. However, as others have pointed out, a blessing of the kind described in Fiducia Supplicans, for a morally perfect person, would be a pointless gift. This pope is a theological and philosophical lightweight (at best) and a dissembler (at worst). I literally avoid hearing or reading anything he says anymore. It causes the opposite of edification.
here is a very good witness from:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/02/07/hypocrisy-and-same-sex-blessings/
Correction Francis: To not be scandalized by blessing gay couples is to be morally and spiritually bankrupt. At least it’s clear where Francis stands now.
Pope Francis in the past has denied blessing to the Mafia…..
Does this come under the same category as «blessing» armies, tanks, battleships and other weaponry or car parks, supermarkets and small furry animals?
I’m sure there is blessing for almost anything.
Familiarity breeds etc.
This hypocrisy highlighted by Pope Francis here is what most of us Catholics unknowingly have as a gap in considering bedroom sins from boardroom sins, the sexual sins from the social sins. Most of us have an unbalanced and faulty moral focus which most often only see sexual sins but are blind to social sins. The bedroom sins (or virtues) but not the boardroom sins (or virtues) of peoples are singularly focused upon so much and made the gauge of one’s Catholicity. Who is deemed worthy and deserving or not to receive the sacraments, here about blessings, is measured by the bedroom sins or virtues. The faithful, full and whole Catholic view entails a balanced complementarity of both these concerns: the sexual and the social sins and virtues. To be focused only on one makes the moral compass defective and incomplete. We find this neglected element of social justice in our Catholic faith dramatically contrasted as a reminder in the prophet Isaiah’s declaration that “the Lord is a God of justice” (Isaiah 30:18). On this matter, the prophet’s message from God stands out about making sure that our concern for the propriety of our spiritual life, prayer and liturgical worship (for example, Vetus Ordo or Novus Ordo?) is significantly lesser compared to God’s primary requirement as to whether we have fulfilled social justice (that is giving active care and voice to and in helping the lost, the least, and the last) first before offering our praises and worship to God: “When you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow” (Isaiah 1:15-17).
Very kindly intended but wildly heretical equivocations, dear ‘DD’.
Sadly, the intention in seeking a blessing is to show everyone in the Church & the world that their sinful homosexual coupling is not illicit at all; for GOD’s commandments & 2,000 years of Christian moral theology are actually misinformed!
By blessing them, PF, CF, JM and accomplices are simply sealing the terrible eternal fate of the unrepentant, God-despising homosexual sinners whilst – accompanied by their apologists – themselves slipping into the devil’s trap.
Hardly a pretty fate for disobedient clerics & lay, and stark evidence of God’s Justice to those Catholics & other Christians devoted to hearing and obeying our LORD Jesus Christ & His Apostles.
As has been said again & again, no financiers ever present themselves for a blessing as corporate sinners. The analogy is specious.
Ever seeking to hear & obey King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
Deacon Dom!
How can you possibly talk about what “most of us Catholics” do or don’t believe?
Who are you to judge? You’ve never even seen or talked to the people you’re spouting these nasty comments about.
Your compulsive pope-splaining, even in the face of unprecedented Bergoglian heterodoxy, has resulted in you becoming a rigid, judgmental ideologue.
If your lashing out in this way is a fruit of this papacy, then I’m afraid it is not one derived of the Holy Spirit.
Those orphans, in today’s society, are primarily children from broken homes (sorry “blended family”), whose parents either never married, or divorced, or have had a succession of boyfriends/girlfriends.
That is what sexual sins do to children. And it is sufficiently widespread that it accounts for over 50% of children in our society. Sexual abuse of minors accounts for over 25%. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a similarly harmful “boardroom sins” at such high rates in our society. Even the abuse of illegal immigrants here is primarily “bedroom”, not “boardroom”. At what percentage do “bedroom sins” become important enough to merit primary attention?
Athanasius above (7:10) – “minor attracted adult” –
Get with it, Athanasius. It’s Minor Attracted Person (MAP) and it’s aleady a thing. Born that way, dontcha know.
So you’re saying that that’s an acceptable lifestyle?
Deacon Dom,
There are “bedroom” sins of the natural sort. and those that are unnatural. Scripture has plenty of strong words to say about those also.
Recommended reading – Linda Gray -‘I’m glad a Priest never blessed my irregular unions’ – Today – Crisis Magazine.
EVERYONE is welcome in Christ’s House – but it’s HIS House so He makes the rules.
There are those who are aware that they are sinners like everyone else and resolve to work at overcoming their sinfulness. Blessing such people does not signal the Church’s approval of their sinfulness.
There are also those who are resolved to continue engaging in sinful activity with another and the two of them wrongly desire that the Church appear to legitimize that sinful activity by blessing them. Bergoglio is happy to aid and abet them in scandalizing the faithful in this way.
And Pilate said to the Pontiff Francis: ‘I have heard it reported that this Jesus, whom some of your co-religionists say is The Son of God, has given a public sermon, commanding that even if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has committed adultery with her in his heart. And his apostle called Paul has written a letter to members of your Church, saying that our subjects who practice fornication and sodomy will not be permitted to enter this new kingdom ruled by this Jesus of yours. What do you say about this?’
And the Pontiff Francis said in reply: “We have no king bur Caesar.”
Discovering something is wrong and pointing it out, is not “being scandalized that reveals hypocrisy”. Attaching the description “disguised as angelic” to somehow prove that the worst of sins is at work and is discoverable and should be sought among the revelation, is an undue derision, not shown to be applicable, misrepresenting further what should have our attention. Such statements made in a disembodied way with no actual general pathology are inflammatory and degrading of everyone.
‘ The prophet Joel inspires us with words rich in pathos:
>> Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare thy people O Lord, make not thy heritage a reproach.” <<
This priestly intercession is a service to which all of us are called. It belongs to our baptismal covenant. By that covenant we open our hearts to pray with tears for the Body of Christ in all its members, so many of whom suffer outrage. we ask that our compassion may fan embers of hope into a living fire, to shed light within us and about us. '
– Bishop Erik Varden, O.C.S.O. – in MAGNIFICAT, Vol. 25, No. 12, February 14 2024 Meditation of the Day
https://aleteia.org/daily-prayer/wednesday-february-14-2/daily-meditation-1/