Pope Francis has expressed deep reservations about the direction of the Catholic Church in Germany, warning that concrete steps currently being taken “threaten” to undermine unity with the universal Church.
In a striking personal intervention, the pope wrote a letter to four German Catholic laywomen that was published in the German newspaper Welt on Nov. 21.
“I, too, share concerns about the numerous concrete steps that large parts of this local church are now taking that threaten to move further and further away from the common path of the universal Church,” the pope wrote in his letter, which was written in German and signed “Francis.”
Chief among the pope’s concerns is a push to establish a permanent “Synodal Council,” a mixed body of laity and bishops that would govern the Catholic Church in Germany. The pope underscored that this kind of “advisory and decision-making body … cannot be reconciled with the sacramental structure of the Catholic Church,” and referenced a previous prohibition the Vatican had issued on the topic.
Leadership of the controversial German Synodal Way recently met in Essen on November 10. They aim to establish a Synodal Council in Germany no later than 2026.
The pope proposed a different path forward for the Church in Germany.
“Instead of looking for ‘salvation’ in ever new committees and always discussing the same topic with a certain self-absorption,” the pope urged the Catholic Church in Germany to “open up and go out to meet our brothers and sisters, especially those who are … on the thresholds of our church doors, on the streets, in the prisons, in the hospitals, in the squares and in the cities.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Memorial in Ottawa, Canada, in tribute to 215 Indigenous children whose remains were found in unmarked graves at the site of a former residential School in Kamloops, June 1, 2021. / meandering images/Shutterstock
Cardinal Joseph Zen. / Rock Li via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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Rome Newsroom, May 20, 2021 / 05:30 am (CNA).
The Vatican’s Council for the Economy faces a “huge task” in its efforts to quickly bring up the Holy See’s accounting and financial transparency to international standards, according to one of its lay members.
“We are very much focused on getting those basic standards in place and making sure the information that is in front of the pope when he makes decisions is thorough, complete, and fair. And we’re not in that situation yet,” Council for the Economy member Ruth Kelly told EWTN News.
Kelly, who was Education Secretary under British Prime Minister Tony Blair and later worked for HSBC Global Asset Management, is one of seven lay people on the Vatican council overseeing the administrative and financial structures and activities of the Roman Curia, institutions of the Holy See, and Vatican City State.
The lay members work together with eight cardinals to set the budget for the Holy See’s entities and raise the level of financial transparency — something which Kelly said can pose unique challenges.
“For example, the historic legacy is very, very difficult to tackle if you take the example of, say … a place of residence through tradition in a particular part of the Vatican, or Rome, or somewhere in the world. It may be the case that no one has ever had it valued, or really thought about who legally owned it, because through customs and tradition it was obvious to what use it should be put,” she said.
“The Holy See cannot yet account for all of the investment properties that it owns specifically around Rome and in Italy. And there’s a huge task to go through to make sure it identifies properly the ownership of each — whether it’s owned by a diocese, whether it’s owned by the Vatican, whether it’s owned by a parish, or somebody else — and then to valuate it to make sure that it’s properly accounted for in the balance sheets.”
“So that’s one real area where the Holy See needs to be moved quickly up to date.”
The Council for the Economy is also currently implementing an investment policy for the Vatican and “a huge training program” in financial standards for those who work in its departments and dicasteries, according to Kelly.
“I’m actually very encouraged by the steps that I’ve seen, even though there’s so much to do and so far to go,” she said.
Pope Francis established the Council for the Economy in 2014 as part of his program of financial reform. Kelly was appointed to the council for a six-year term last August along with five other women with backgrounds in banking, finance, asset management, and international law.
“There’s a real recognition that it’s now very important at the heart of the Church to have lay experts involved in overseeing the Vatican accounts and policies and so forth. And that is important, not just in its own sake, but also for the credibility of the process,” Kelly said.
“The ambition is to have international accounting standards applied in full across the Holy See,” she said. “That’s not a position which we have arrived at yet, but it is one to which we aspire.”
Kelly spoke at the webinar series, “Inspiring Trust: Church Communications and Organizational Vulnerability,” offered by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. The university is entrusted to Opus Dei, with which Kelly is associated.
“To be brutally honest about it, from my perspective of the council’s perspectives … it’s not clear how funds have been flowing and how they’ve been managed because the transparency hasn’t been there,” she said.
Kelly is adamant that “once that transparency is there, and international standards are applied, then you can start talking altogether differently about the Vatican’s role and its responsibility and how it manages money, and so forth.”
“If someone’s going to put money into the Peter’s Pence account, they need to know that that money is being well spent. And at the moment, you can’t say definitely that we can show that, but we’re well on the way I think to be able to do that before too long,” she said.
The Council of the Economy was very focused on cost restraint in setting this year’s budget, asking Vatican departments to come up with reductions in their spending, Kelly explained.
The Vatican’s budget, which already operated on a deficit, took another hit in 2020 and the beginning of 2021, when the Vatican Museums, a major source of income, was forced to close for months.
For the Holy See, the coronavirus crisis also meant collapsing market investments, uncertain income from real estate investments, and diminished contributions from the Church around the world.
“The Holy See suffered, along with every other organization, or many other organizations, in the pandemic, and that’s not surprising. And the question really for the council is how much of that is temporary and how much of that will bounce back,” she said.
“And it is the case that fundraising has been severely dented through the COVID crisis, not surprisingly, as it has been felt right throughout the Church,” she said.
“So, you know, it is one of the areas in our minds, as we think about how to restore the reputation and how to create a strong reputation for how the Holy See manages finances.”
Kelly is confident that there is a strong willingness among both the lay members and the cardinals on the council to “make an impact quickly.”
“We do expect results, very significant results, before the six years run out at the end of the council’s current term,” she said.
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx has overseen the council since its creation in 2014. Other cardinals currently on the council include Joseph Tobin of Newark; Anders Arborelius of Stockholm; Péter Erdő of Esztergom-Budapest; Odilo Scherer of São Paulo; Gérald Lacroix of Quebec; Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila; and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.
Among the lay members are German law professor Charlotte Kreuter-Kirchhof; Maria Kolak, president of the National Association of German Cooperative Banks; Alberto Minali, the former chief investment officer of the asset management group Eurizon; Leslie Ferrar, who was treasurer to Britain’s Prince Charles; elevator manufacturer Zardoya Otis; and Eva Castillo Sanz, who sits on the board of directors of the Spanish bank Bankia.
Kelly said: “One of the things that’s on my mind to really explore as we go forward is how the whole whistleblowing setup works in the Vatican. Because I think part of an open culture is not only financial transparency but the ability of people to raise issues in private, perhaps without being identified or only identified if they so wish.”
“Now I do know that whistleblowing happens, but I’m not yet sure that that works well enough within the Holy See, and the Vatican.”
“There is a huge way to go, but I do think the will is there at the very top to see change happen,” she said.
Are all the rosaries, penance, and liturgical priest’s prayers for the Roman pontiff during Mass having effect? Everything Pope Francis says here is true. What is absolutely necessary is for Francis to back up his words with action, that is, if there’s no compliance within a specified time. A time limit is required here because of the history of seeming duplicity.
If the familiar pattern of verbal chastisement followed by tolerance repeats itself, it can be discounted. Christians need be aware of the difference between oration and practice. The latter will save us. Of itself the former not [words and faith alone may have been fine for Martin Luther, not for the tradition left by Christ for the Apostles, and the long sacred history of witness by our saints and martyrs]. Words can be used as deceitful weapons to anesthetize and render inert. Certainly we hope for favorable response and resolution.
Finally light may be dawning about the results of his having allowed the Germans to go their merry separate way. However it sounds like too little, too late. Why does he sound like a mere powerless observer instead of a Pope with authority to call them to the Vatican and tell them to knock it off?? He has allowed them all this while to give “blessings” to gay couples. And all the ongoing blather about women deacons, etc. does he imagine they will cave to his suthority now?? After doing their own thing all this time? He has waited too long to act. Intentional?? Its hard to imagine he has been oblivious to what the Germans have been doing all this time. If he fails to hold their feet to the fire and gain their cooperation and obedience, he will be giving tacit approval to a new schism.
If there were someone out there causing grief and endless turmoil while preaching joy and common pathway, what would the Holy Father do about it? What would he be able to do? Would he even recognize it? Would it matter for it to be first noticed by some close associate who then reports it to him directly? If there some such advisers, who are they? And if there is only one, who is he?
will pope francis remove german bishop like he did at texas?or he will permit german bishop to ‘recognise and resist’ him?
Are all the rosaries, penance, and liturgical priest’s prayers for the Roman pontiff during Mass having effect? Everything Pope Francis says here is true. What is absolutely necessary is for Francis to back up his words with action, that is, if there’s no compliance within a specified time. A time limit is required here because of the history of seeming duplicity.
If the familiar pattern of verbal chastisement followed by tolerance repeats itself, it can be discounted. Christians need be aware of the difference between oration and practice. The latter will save us. Of itself the former not [words and faith alone may have been fine for Martin Luther, not for the tradition left by Christ for the Apostles, and the long sacred history of witness by our saints and martyrs]. Words can be used as deceitful weapons to anesthetize and render inert. Certainly we hope for favorable response and resolution.
Finally light may be dawning about the results of his having allowed the Germans to go their merry separate way. However it sounds like too little, too late. Why does he sound like a mere powerless observer instead of a Pope with authority to call them to the Vatican and tell them to knock it off?? He has allowed them all this while to give “blessings” to gay couples. And all the ongoing blather about women deacons, etc. does he imagine they will cave to his suthority now?? After doing their own thing all this time? He has waited too long to act. Intentional?? Its hard to imagine he has been oblivious to what the Germans have been doing all this time. If he fails to hold their feet to the fire and gain their cooperation and obedience, he will be giving tacit approval to a new schism.
If there were someone out there causing grief and endless turmoil while preaching joy and common pathway, what would the Holy Father do about it? What would he be able to do? Would he even recognize it? Would it matter for it to be first noticed by some close associate who then reports it to him directly? If there some such advisers, who are they? And if there is only one, who is he?