Canon lawyer lays siege to the whole basis of synodality. Simulating participation. No bishop is legally bound by the decisions of the Synodal Conference!

The Synodal Path on the Home Stretch – A Canon Law Assessment

Since 2019, the German Bishops' Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics have been pursuing the Synodal Path. The final Synodal Assembly will take place in January, where the results of the process will be evaluated once again in a large forum. Bernhard Sven Anuth presents a canon law assessment today.

The final Synodal Assembly of the so-called "Synodal Path" will take place in Stuttgart from January 29-31, 2026. Those involved believe it is “a structured dialogue and reform process through which the Catholic Church in Germany has addressed the structural and theological challenges that have come to light in the sexual abuse by clergy.”[1] In reality, in March 2019, under pressure from the MHG study, the German bishops unilaterally and without any clear outline decided to embark on “a synodal path” together with the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK). However, the lay members of the ZdK were willing helpers of the bishops and quickly abandoned their initial conditions after Rome intervened and defined the limits of the project. Thus, even though the majority of those involved have long vehemently claimed the opposite in the media, and in some cases still do today, it was already clear from the statutes adopted in autumn 2019 that the Synodal Path would merely be another round of talk therapy or busywork by the bishops for the rest of the people of God, since the decisions of the Synodal Assembly had no binding effect under either magisterial or canon law, but were always only recommendations or requests to the Pope or the diocesan bishops.[2]

The Synodal Path would merely be another round of talk therapy or occupational therapy.

That this lack of binding force was the decisive weakness of the entire process has been recognized, at least in retrospect, by those prominently involved in the Synodal Path.[3] From a canon law perspective, what is surprising, besides the late timing of this realization, is above all the disillusionment and/or disappointment sometimes associated with it. Finally, since 2019, canon lawyers have repeatedly and publicly pointed out the magisterial and canonical limits of this supposed "reform process." Furthermore, the former Bonn canon lawyer Norbert Lüdecke demonstrated as early as 2021 in his book "The Deception" the long tradition of "participation simulations" by bishops and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) in which the Synodal Path stands, and that it was/is therefore merely a new variant of what ultimately remains the same.[4]

However, bishops and laypeople alike have rarely welcomed critical canonical perspectives on their "dialogue and reform process" and have largely ignored them even when they had specifically requested them: For example, in June 2024, two canon lawyers were invited to the second meeting of the Synodal Committee and explicitly asked to provide realistic information on canonical perspectives for a "Synodal Council" of the Church in Germany. The requested information was as follows: The Pope decided in 2023 “that neither the Synodal Path nor any body appointed by him nor any episcopal conference has the competence to establish the ‘Synodal Council’ at the national, diocesan, or parish level.”[5] Therefore, the Synodal Council, which the texts of the Synodal Path outlined and whose establishment the Synodal Committee was supposed to prepare, could not and would not come into existence with the Apostolic See. Whether this also meant that the name “Synodal Council” was now unusable, or whether Rome could be persuaded to establish another body under the same name, remained to be seen and was perhaps a matter for negotiation. However, due to the Roman reservation of approval for its statutes, there would certainly not be a Synodal Council that could make any binding decisions or even serve a reform of ecclesiastical “power structures” in the sense of the basic text “Power and Separation of Powers.”[6] Therefore, it is time to be honest: Lay people in particular should abandon any hope of genuine co-decision-making power. In fact, the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) already did this when it embarked on the legally non-binding Synodal Path, even though it then pretended for a long time, in a counterfactual manner, that this path could indeed be binding.[7] – Subsequently, according to a journalistic observer, “the initial euphoria […] gave way to great disillusionment and anger”[8] in the Synodal Committee. Instead of the agreed-upon substantive discussion about the presented canonical assessments – and thus about the realistic opportunities and limitations of synodal bodies within the Catholic Church in Germany – the two short presentations were followed almost entirely by counter-arguments in the mode of assertions and with sometimes dubious self-descriptions which culminated in the statement: "Then we'll just have to change canon law."

A year and a half later, in November 2025, the Synodal Committee unanimously adopted a constitution for the new synodal body of the Catholic Church in Germany. The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) has already adopted it—also unanimously—and the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) is scheduled to vote on it in February 2026, after which Rome must grant recognitio. For the DBK chairman, however, the Synodal Committee's decision was already "a magnificent moment, even a historic one"; bishops and laity had succeeded in "taking important steps forward in terms of participation, transparency, accountability, joint consultation, and decision-making." The ZdK president also highlighted the fact that bishops and laity in Germany will now "consult and make decisions together in the future" as a key success in light of the adopted constitution.[9]

From a canonical perspective, this enthusiasm is not comprehensible. Firstly, the name "Synodal Council" was apparently indeed tainted in Rome; at least, the body to be established is now to be called the "Synodal Conference." Secondly—and more importantly—the participatory rights of this Synodal Conference remain within precisely those canonical boundaries that the Synodal Committee had sought to transgress in June 2024. According to its statutes, the Synodal Conference explicitly respects "the constitutional order of the Church and safeguards the rights of the diocesan bishops and the German Bishops' Conference, as well as diocesan procedures and bodies" (Article 1, Paragraph 2). The addressees of all resolutions are solely responsible for their implementation, and this—in an almost embarrassingly subservient tone—"at their own discretion, according to their own procedures, and in accordance with their own bodies" (Article 7, Paragraph 1).

From a canonical perspective, this enthusiasm is incomprehensible.

In plain terms: No bishop is legally bound by the resolutions of the Synodal Conference! Like those of the Synodal Path, they will merely be requests and/or recommendations to the bishops. And yet, the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) declares that the Synodal Conference is “ultimately […] not a paper tiger,” because its statutes contain the formula “that has always been important to us as laypeople: that we deliberate and decide together.”[10] Apparently, the ZdK intends to continue, or rather, once again, sell what are legally only non-binding recommendations as co-decision-making. Thus, the laity willingly contribute to the next “participation avatar”[11] of the bishops and not only reaffirm their commitment to the hierarchical system of their church, but also confirm the canonical finding that since its founding, “the simulation of participation has been part of the DNA of the ZdK.”[12] Anyone who witnessed the sometimes furious and indignant reactions, especially from laypeople, at the Synodal Committee meeting in June 2024 to the sobering explanation of the canonical limits of synodality can only marvel at the unanimity of the resolution on the statutes and perhaps even wonder how these laypeople can still look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

No bishop is legally bound by the decisions of the Synodal Conference!

Source

[1] Julia Knop, Art. Synodal Path (May 17, 2023), in: Staatslexikon8 online (https://www.herder.de/staatslexikon/artikel/synodaler-weg/; December 15, 2025).

[2] For a detailed discussion, see, for example, Bernhard Sven Anuth, A “Common Path”!? Canon Law Perspectives on a Synodal Experiment, in: Anuth/Georg Bier/Karsten Kreutzer (eds.), The Synodal Path – An Interim Assessment. Freiburg i.Br. 2021, 47–66, esp. 47–49, 55 and 58f.

[3] See, for example, Julia Knop, The Synodal Path of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany (2019–2023). Approach, process, results, critique, in: ThLZ 194 (2024) 263–280, 269.

[4] Cf. Norbert Lüdecke, The Deception: Do Catholics Have the Church They Deserve?, Darmstadt 2021, esp. 245.

[5] Pietro Cardinal Parolin/Luis Francisco Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer/Marc Cardinal Quellet, letter of January 16, 2023 (N. 2825 /SdS/2023), 3 (https://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse_alt/presse_2023/2023-009a-Brief-Kardinalstaatsekretaer-Praefekten-der-Dikasterien-fuer-die_Glaubenslehre-und-fuer-die-Bischoefe.pdf; December 15, 2025).

[6] See Synodal Path, Basic Text “Power and Separation of Powers in the Church: Joint Participation and Involvement in the Mission” (https://www.synodalerweg.de/fileadmin/Synodalerweg/Dokumente_Reden_Beitraege/beschluesse-broschueren/SW3-Grundtext_MachtundGewaltenteilunginderKirche_2022_NEU.pdf; 15 December 2025), 65–114.

[7] See Die Tagespost, Anuth: There Will Be No Joint Departure, 14 June 2024 (https://www.die-tagespost.de/kirche/synodaler-weg/anuth-ein-mitenscheiden-wird-es-nicht-geben-art-252369; 15 December 2025).

[7] See Die Tagespost, Anuth: There Will Be No Joint Decisions, 14 June 2024 (https://www.die-tagespost.de/kirche/synodaler-weg/anuth-ein-mitenscheiden-wird-es-nicht-geben-art-252369; 15 December 2025). [8] See Dorothea Schmidt, Synodal Committee Under Scrutiny, June 17, 2024 (https://www.die-tagespost.de/kirche/synodaler-weg/synodaler-ausschuss-auf-dem-pruefstand-art-252381; accessed December 15, 2025).

[9] See Press Release No. 063, The Synodal Path: Statutes of the Synodal Conference Unanimously Adopted, November 22, 2025 (https://www.synodalerweg.de/service/aktuelles/meldung/satzung-der-synodalkonferenz-einstimmig-beschlossen; accessed December 15, 2025).

[10] Irme Stetter-Karp, in: Joachim Heinz/Christoph Brüwer, Stetter-Karp: New Synodal Conference is not a paper tiger, November 22, 2025 (https://www.katholisch.de/artikel/65867-stetter-karp-neue-synodalkonferenz-ist-kein-papiertiger; December 15, 2025)

[11] Cf. Norbert Lüdecke, The freedom of “Mr. Woelki”, February 4, 2020 (https://www.feinschwarz.net/die-freiheit-des-herrn-woelki/; December 15, 2025).

[12] Lüdecke, Deception (note 4), 9.