Catholic laity call on German Bishops to stop co-operating with abortion supporter

"End the co-operation with Dr Stetter-Karp!"

OPEN LETTER FROM THE MARIA 1.0 INITIATIVE TO BISHOP GEORG BÄTZING

In an open letter, the Maria 1.0 Initiative calls on the President of the German Bishops' Conference to end his co-operation with the Chairperson of the Central Committee of German Catholics.  The latter had previously sided with the abortion lobby.

The Maria 1.0 initiative has written an explosive open letter to the Chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing.  It denounces the move of the chairperson of the Central Committee of German Catholics into the camp of the abortion lobby and also the fact that the German Bishops' Conference remains silent on the matter.

On Wednesday, 3 August, a letter was sent "in great concern" to Bishop Bätzing, "as many Catholics in our country were horrified and confused by recent statements made by Dr Stetter-Karp". The chairperson of the ominous Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) demanded "that the medical intervention of an abortion should be made possible across the board", thus placing herself in the camp of the abortion lobby.



Stetter-Karp is commited alongside the majority faction of the German Bishops' Conference not only for the dubious "Synodal Path", but recently also for the killing of innocent unborn children.  Stetter-Karp is committed to the killing of unborn children and thus risks having herself excommunicated in accordance with church law.  If she does not back down from her stance advocating the killing of innocent people, she runs the risk of having excluded herself from the communion of the Church and no longer being admitted to the Sacraments.  Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the offence of excommunication in 2007 with regard to Mexican members of parliament who voted for the legalisation of abortion.  In Stetter-Karp's case, it is not a matter of direct responsibility for an abortion law, which she obviously agrees with, but instead, as chairperson of the ZdK, she is in a prominent public position in which her stance has a negative effect on Catholics and others, as well as causing damage to the Church.  According to Canon Law, the killing of an unborn child is one of the most serious crimes.  Approval of such a crime, which in the Federal Republic of Germany alone has reached the two-digit million range since the exemption of abortion from criminal punishment, is to be assessed accordingly.  So much for the facts.  The Maria 1.0 initiative writes:

"Since this topic is of such importance and can by no means be ignored, we announced in this letter to Bishop Bätzing that we reserve the right to formulate and publicise an open letter; in the letter we invited him to attach a statement on his part to our text.  Since we have not received a reply to date (11 August) and Bishop Bätzing apparently continues to adhere to co-operation with Dr Stetter-Karp, we are publishing the following open letter.  We were able to win over Catholic initial signatories for the open letter; they come from different regions, are of different ages, men as well as women and combine the most diverse professions."

The first signatory of the Maria 1.0 open letter is Clara Steinbrecher.  The student from Eichstätt leads the association of Catholics who are "committed to the unity of the universal Church and fidelity to the Papal Magisterium".  Throughout Germany, especially young women are involved in Maria 1.0 and give the initiative a face.  In addition to an apostolate of prayer and information, Maria 1.0 wants to help shape the discourse around the Catholic Church through its media presence.  In the future, the initiative also plans theological conferences and a networking opportunity for Catholics.

The open letter to Bishop Bätzing reads as follows:

German Bishops' Conference

Chairman

H. E. Bishop Dr Georg Bätzing

Kaiserstrasse 161

53113 Bonn

Excellency

Dear Bishop Dr Bätzing,

"CONGREGA IN UNUM - Lead together" is your episcopal motto.  We, the signatories of this open letter, are writing to you today out of concern for the unity of the Catholic Church within Germany and the unity of the Catholic Church in Germany with Rome and the universal Church; there are many reasons for this!

In the meantime, you receive almost regular mail from bishops and cardinals from Germany and abroad who are concerned about the state of the Catholic Church in Germany, even from entire Bishops' Conferences and there is also no lack of repeated (admonishing) words from Rome. A Holy Father who is visibly frustrated and annoyed by German conditions openly asks in interviews why his "Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany" of 29 June 2019, for which he personally took several weeks and which he wrote as a shepherd, brother, father and believer of a Church that is trying to find its way forward, receives so little attention in this country.  We wonder about this with him, Excellency!

In his letter, Pope Francis calls us to a pastoral conversion, reminding us "that evangelisation must be our guiding criterion par excellence, by which we can discern all the steps we are called to set in motion as an ecclesial community; evangelisation constitutes the proper and essential mission of the Church." And what does the Synodal Path, of which you are co-president, think about this?  The establishment of a separate forum dedicated to evangelisation was rejected.  Instead, it was agreed that in the course of the Synodal Path's further deliberations, it would even deal with the question of whether the office of Catholic priest is still needed at all!  Even under your leadership, Excellency, the Synodal Path is in danger of falling into the offside trap which, according to Pope Francis, consists in "believing that one of the first and greatest temptations in the ecclesial sphere is to believe that solutions to present and future problems can be achieved exclusively by reforming structures, organisations and administration, but that these ultimately do not touch in any way the vital points which actually need attention".

We believe that it urgently needs your attention, for example, that according to a survey by the Erfurt-based market and social research institute.  INSA-Consulere commissioned by the Protestant news agency "idea" and quoted on 18.04.2019 by katholisch.de, only 28% of Roman Catholics still believe in the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  According to a survey by the Pew Research Center also cited by katholisch.de on 06.08.2019, almost 70% of US Catholics no longer believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  In our country, the numbers are unlikely to be any better.  And under these auspices of evaporating faith in your own ranks, are you holding talks with the churches of the Reformation about mutual participation in the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper?  No, Excellency, we are well on the way to that 'modernised', woke-liberal, politically correct ecclesiastical organism that Pope Francis warns would remain without soul and without the freshness of the Gospel!

We have been silent about all this for a long time, rubbing our eyes in bewilderment at how the MHG study and the abuse of innocent children and young people - which we condemn and want to see cleared up just as much as you do (!) - is being used as an opportunity to try to restructure our Church in such a way that we, as Roman Catholics, would no longer recognise ourselves in it, were it not for Rome and the universal Church. The whole thing is orchestrated by the same handful of German theology professors who seem to be preparing to replace the episcopal teaching authority in our country.  And please do not believe that we did not notice the many deliberate violations (also by individual bishops), both small and large, of explicit Roman guidelines or the teachings of the Church.  That does not unite, Excellency, that divides!

Now, however, your Co-President of the Synodal Way and President of the ZdK, Dr Irme Stetter-Karp, has crossed a red line that makes us no longer silent but seek publicity: The incident is well known: Dr Stetter-Karp, in her guest article for "Christ & Welt" in the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" of 17.07.2022, under the programmatic heading "Right to life, right to self-determination", demanded that it should be "ensured that the medical intervention of an abortion is made possible throughout the country." "A reflection on how the offer can be ensured is pending - which also includes the training of doctors," Stetter-Karp continued.  The fact that the co-founder of Donum Vitae is abusing her office as the highest lay representative of the Catholic Church and as Co-President of the Synodal Path in order to promote a personal socio-political concern, namely the alleged equivalence of the woman's right to self-determination and the right to life of the unborn child propagated by Donum Vitae, is a monstrosity for every believing Catholic!  Not only that, Dr Stetter-Karp even goes further in response to the immediate criticism, stating that a (state) law must ultimately be enforced. She thus clearly shows that she finds herself in an irresolvable role conflict, which she herself obviously does not even recognise and which places her in clear opposition to the applicable church doctrine. Her press spokesman, Mr Matthias Kopp, then reacted with the necessary clarity and made it clear that the position of the ZdK President is in contradiction to the German Bishops' Conference.  Your confrere in the episcopate, His Excellency Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Maria Renz, adds at CNA: "Whoever wants to be and remain Catholic will therefore naturally demand a nationwide offer of diverse help for pregnant women in conflict situations but not a nationwide provision of possibilities to get rid of one's own offspring."

And now, Excellency?  From you personally, who otherwise never asks for a statement on persons such as the Archbishops His Excellency Dr Stefan Heße and His Excellency Dr Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki, we hear only loud silence about the case of your Co-President Stetter-Karp!  Instead, as early as 21.07.2022, you publish another joint statement with Dr Stetter-Karp on the latest admonitions from the Vatican Secretariat of State.  Is our impression correct that in view of the German permanent conflict with Rome you want to avoid at all costs that the outrageous statements of Dr Stetter-Karp become a wedge between DBK and ZdK and thus weaken the Synodal Path?  Do you want to go back to business as usual and continue to work with a Co-President who - because she continues to be intransigent - according to the words of your confrere His Excellency Auxiliary Bishop Renz, cannot actually remain a credible Catholic?  It is true that you only have a certain influence on who is President of the ZdK, but it is up to you as President of the German Bishops' Conference to decide whether you are willing to continue working with Dr Stetter-Karp under these circumstances!

We, the signatories of this letter, would find it unbearable to think that one day you might travel to Rome side by side with Dr Stetter-Karp as a representative of the German Catholic Church or, if that were to happen, that she might even join you as co-chair in the planned Synodal Council to decide on the fate of the "German Catholic Church".  Your Excellency, we ask you and your confreres in the episcopate, who all promised at their consecration that they would render pure and unabridged the Church's deposit of Faith handed down by the apostles, to end your co-operation with Dr Stetter-Karp unless she is willing to publicly revise her position and return to the Church's teaching on the protection of unborn life.

Yours sincerely

Clara Steinbrecher, Director of the Maria 1.0 Initiative

Dr Michael F. Feldkamp, historian and publicist, Berlin

Dr Beate Beckmann-Zöller, freelance philosopher of religion

Professor Dr Christoph Binninger, Director of the Episcopal Studium Rudolphinum, Regensburg

Dr Christian Schmidt, Herder Institute, Marburg

Mathias von Gersdorff, publicist and author

Gisela Geirhos, Publishing Director Media Maria

Dr Hinrich E. Bues, publicist and lecturer on Christian spirituality and evangelism

Kristian Aufiero, CEO 1000plus/Pro Femina e. V.

Professor Dr Manfred Spieker, emeritus professor for Christian social sciences, University of Osnabrück

Timothy Flanders, publisher of OnePeterFive (1P5)

Professor Dr Matthias Amen, Professor for Business Administration, Bielefeld University

Professor Dr Christian Müller, economist

Felizitas Küble, Director Komm-Mit-Verlag and Christoferuswerk

Professor Dr Berthold Wald, emeritus Professor for Systematic Philosophy, Paderborn Faculty of Theology

Sister M. Margreth, St. Peter-Ording

Professor Dr Dr Elmar Nass, Professor for Social Sciences, KHKT Cologne

St. Boniface Institute

Sister Veronika Reincke OCD (Carmelite), Prioress of the Carmel St. Josef, Aufkirchen

Ursula Maria Fehlner, Federal Chairperson of the Association of Catholic German Women Teachers (VkdL e. V.)

Professor Dr Wolfgang Klausnitzer, emeritus professor of fundamental theology

Professor Dr Dieter J. Weiß, historian, Munich

Peter Esser, graduate designer

Dr Ludger Hölscher, parish vicar St. Peter-Ording

Christof T. Zeller-Zellenberg, investor and publicist, Vienna

Dr Margarete Strauss, journalism with focus on internet apostolate

PD Dr Stefan Luft, political scientist, Bremen

Professor Dr med. Angelo Dell'Aquila, Clinic for Heart Surgery, Münster

Dr Joachim Krebs, former ambassador, Düren

"A nation that kills its unborn children has no future."

Pope John Paul II

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The response was less than satisfactory

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