Modernist theologian says Pope thinks Synodality is a Jesuitical game and is playing with fire, as many are threatening leave if disappointed
Hubert Wolf: Swiss bishops should ordain married men as priests
Bishops should use their episcopal power, says church historian Hubert Wolf. That means asking Pope Francis for an indult to ordain married men as priests or even women as deacons, he says. A conversation about the unsynodal Pope Francis, Monika Schmid - and sex.
How do you look at the synodal process of the universal Catholic Church?
Hubert Wolf: I am very sceptical. Now the faithful are being motivated to participate and think. Hopes are being raised. It is a very dangerous game with fire - if there are no reforms, the Church will also lose those who have been willing to participate so far. The same can be seen with the Synodal Path in Germany: there was so much discussion and in the end nothing came out of it other than asking the Holy Father once again to look into the whole thing.
Already at the Würzburg Synod and at Synod 72, many demands were made...
Wolf: ... and nothing happened. The Church cannot afford that again. The people will not go through that again. Especially because reforms are not only demanded in Western Europe. At the Amazon Synod 2019, I was invited by the Brazilian bishops to study sources on celibacy with them. The very conservative bishops wanted to know whether married priests alongside celibate priests belong to the tradition of the Church or not.
What conclusion did you come to?
Wolf: The Second Vatican Council says that celibacy does not belong to the nature of the priest and that there are married priests alongside celibate priests. We looked at the practice of the Orthodox Eastern Churches or also that Protestant clergy receive a dispensation from Rome after their conversion. 80 percent of the bishops were in favour of the introduction of married priests in the Amazon.
Pope Francis, however, did not follow suit.
Wolf: The bishops followed exactly the order for the Synod of Bishops given by Pope Francis: The meeting took place in Rome, only the Bishops' votes counted and a 2/3 majority was required. The bishops from the Amazon region had a very hard time with their decision, but spoke out in favour of married priests in the interest of pastoral and pastoral care in their dioceses. And then Pope Francis did not implement the result. If the Pope had stuck to his own guidelines, he should have implemented this decision. This makes me sceptical about the synodal process worldwide.
"Synodality for him is actually Ignatian activation."
Where do you see the problem?
Wolf: The Pope does not understand synodality as a synodal process that then has decision-making power. I have a daring thesis: Pope Francis is a Jesuit. For him, synodality is actually Ignatian activation. If there is a problem in the order, all members should think about it. In the end, however, it is the Jesuit Superior General who decides.
What reforms did Church history go through that contemporaries said would never happen because the Pope had already declared it impossible?
Wolf: Your question is wrong.
Is it?
Wolf: You have an image of the Church in your head that has only existed since 1870 and you equate the Church with the Papal Church.
Then I will rephrase my question: Did a deviant practice in a particular local church threaten the unity of the Church?
Wolf: In late antiquity, one could only go to confession once in a lifetime. Those who wanted to make use of penance had to confess their sins publicly before the congregation and were then publicly excommunicated. After that, works of penance had to be done. After one year at the earliest, one could be accepted back into the congregation. If one relapsed again, there was no second chance. At the same time, the practice of repeated confession arose in Ireland. In the Mediterranean, absolution was done by the Bishop; in Ireland, nuns and monks absolved sins. These are two completely different models of one and the same sacrament. But this did not threaten the unity of the Church.
"Is the rewriting of the Canon of the Mass a tradition in the diocese?"
In Switzerland, it is completely normal for women to lead a congregation and even worship. Not in other parts of the world. Last year, pastor Monika Schmid prayed at the celebration of her farewell service. What do you say about that?
Wolf: I only know reports about it. I don't know what exactly happened. As a historian I should know: Did Mrs Schmid hold up the chalice at the doxology together with the main celebrant or not? If she did not, she did not fulfil an essential characteristic of concelebration at all. Also, I would need to know: Is it customary in the parish or diocese for a woman to say the words of institution? Who has brought the Canon of the Mass? Is the rewriting of the Canon of the Mass a tradition in the diocese, so other priests do it too? According to canon law, the Bishop must always intervene if a celebrant rewrites the Canon of the Mass - regardless of whether a woman joins in or not.
"The abbesses had a sacramental consecration."
Have there been women concelebrating in church history?
Wolf: We know the very least about the ministerial level of priests in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Because they were not actually needed. After all, in a city culture like the Middle Ages, the bishop is the priest. The city has a few thousand inhabitants and is the bishopric. And the one who presides at the Eucharist is the bishop. And he has deacons next to him who served as ministers of baptism. This could also be a female deacon - these were ordained according to the same ordination form as the male deacons. But priests were not needed in this model.
But the ordination of female deacons is disappearing in the West.
Wolf: In my opinion, this is slipping into the abbess ordination. The Benedictine and Cistercian abbesses have a sacramental ordination. They have received a ring and staff. This was only abolished by the Second Vatican Council.
In what way?
Wolf: Because Vatican II invented episcopal consecration as a sacrament and tied jurisdiction to consecration. Neither the Council of Trent nor Thomas Aquinas know episcopal consecration as a sacrament. There are two stages of ordination: Diaconate and Ordination. The bishop is simply an overseer. St. Thomas Aquinas says: "The highest thing a priest can do is to produce the Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ by consecration. That is all the bishop can do. Until Vatican II, there was a separation: the power of ordination gives the ability to administer sacraments. However, ordination is not needed to exercise jurisdiction in the Church. There were many bishops without ordination. And abbesses acted as bishops in their own territory as a matter of course.
So when did the priesthood come into being?
Wolf: At the moment when Christianity made the leap over the Alps. There was no urban culture there. But the Bishop could not celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday in countless places at the same time. That is why the priesthood emerged as a separate office. We do not know whether presbyterate and episcopate were identical before.
"Re-form means to form back."
How do you think reforms should be approached?
Wolf: As I have already said, in history there have always been different answers to the same question at the same time - without the unity of the Church being endangered as a result. That is thoroughly Catholic.
So should it simply be done until something is established in a local church?
Wolf: No. Because re-form means to form back. We are re-establishing a concept that already existed. Married priests, for example, were a matter of course in church history. So it is not a break with scripture or tradition. If it can be plausibly justified historically, then I see no reason why something that was good for 1000 years should now suddenly be bad.
What do you suggest in concrete terms?
Wolf: The bishops must use their episcopal power instead of pushing forward any synodal processes. They should finally show some backbone and be courageous. They should write the following to Rome: We bishops of Basel, St Gallen and Chur will ordain 30 married men as priests in six months. For this we ask for an indult for our dioceses, Holy Father.
And then?
Wolf: Then the Pope must finally decide. If he says no, he has to justify it publicly.
Shouldn't there also be a kind of "Out in Church" for priests who secretly have a relationship with a woman?
Wolf: That is a personal decision. I don't think much of mass outing. If some priests come out at the same time that they are in a relationship with a woman, the bishop is forced to suspend them. We should get away from such emotional coming-out stories and instead look soberly at numbers, data and facts: In our tradition, we have married priests alongside celibate priests.
How many priests can actually live without sex?
Wolf: Sexuality is part of the human being. No one can become a priest who does not have a mature sexual relationship. Nevertheless, a certain group of men are attracted to the priestly ministry because they cannot establish a mature sexual relationship with an adult partner. They have a deficient sexuality. A basic problem is certainly that in priestly formation the attitude has long been: better not to talk about sexuality.
"The Synodal Path is a debating club."
You criticise the Synodal Path in Germany. Why?
Wolf: For me, the Synodal Way has a birth defect. I think it would have needed a plenary council - like the Australians have done. Then only the bishops would have voted, but a plenary council with a 2/3 majority also binds the one third that does not agree with the results. The Synodal Path is a debating club that has no legal powers. This leads to much frustration.
* Hubert Wolf (63) is the most sought-after Catholic church historian in Germany. He teaches at the University of Münster and is a priest of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. In 2019, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern. He was a guest at a conference on Christian Catholicism in Bern.
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