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Bishop who backs same-sex blessings on European Synod Assembly: Disillusionment, frustration, strong anger

Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, who participated via livestream on behalf of the German delegation at the European Continental Assembly as part of the multi-year World Synod on Synodality, told katholisch.de on Friday that there had already been "a great deal of disillusionment to the point of frustration and strong anger" in the German language group.



In the German group, they imagine synodality "differently", "than just sitting and listening to lectures and then perhaps giving a three-minute statement - which only happened because the working group was able to meet. Otherwise we would have been mere listeners."

Within the German group there had been "a very good exchange", "but it wasn't really controversial. It was people who were basically with the same theological way of thinking. For us it was important to make it clear that it's about specific steps and that we don't just stay in a theological cloud."

"To name five key words that were important to us: broad participation, enduring non-simultaneity and different theological approaches, the importance of academic theology, allowing enquiries from outside and that synodal processes take time," Kohlgraf said.

At a meeting of the German language group, the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Irme Stetter-Karp, as well as one of the ZdK vice-presidents, theologian Thomas Söding, called for women to have access to priestly ordination.

Kohlgraf compared the German Synodal Path with the worldwide synodal process launched by Pope Francis and explained that many things had been similar, for example, "that one had only limited speaking time, that one could not go into depth and that there were partly no debates. One may wonder about the Frankfurt assemblies, but with us - one may say this immodestly - there are debates, people from the plenum are taken seriously and not only the podium talks."

"That was consistently different in Prague, up to the point that the chat function was partly switched off for various non-transparent reasons," said the Bishop of Mainz. "I cannot share the Pope's criticism that the Synodal Path would be elitist, especially against the background of these experiences, because in the end it is the bishops who decide there, and that is also an elitist group.

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Cathcon will let Saint Ambrose speak on this matter:

Sed non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum. 

God has not pleased to save His people by means of disputation.


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