Former head of German laity seeking to subvert Episcopal authority

 In the church reform debate, the former president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Thomas Sternberg, sharply criticises Rome.

"I believe that we are currently experiencing rearguard action from some offices in the Vatican, which are obviously frighteningly uninformed about church life on the ground," he says.

He also defends plans to set up Synodal Councils in Germany.

In the church reform debate, the former President of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Thomas Sternberg, sharply criticises Rome. "I believe that we are currently experiencing rearguard action from some offices in the Vatican, which are obviously frighteningly uninformed about church life on the ground," he told the Catholic News Agency (KNA).

Sternberg, who headed the highest representative lay body from 2015 to 2021, expressed his conviction that there would be changes in church life. "Not only because the Pope has repeatedly called for this and started a synodal process at the level of the universal Church. But also because this corresponds to people's attitude to life and the situation of the Church."

"Synodal Council merely an extension of synodal structures"

Most recently, Pope Ambassador Nikola Eterovic had reiterated reservations about the Synodal Path for the future of the Church in Germany at the plenary assembly of the German bishops. Eterovic rejected the plan to install a Synodal Council in which bishops and laity would continue their consultations and decide together. Not even a local Bishop could set up a synodal council at diocesan or parish level.

Sternberg, on the other hand, described the Synodal Council as an extension of the Joint Conference of Laity and Bishops, which has existed at the federal level for about 50 years. "Should that also be abolished in the future?" The Synodal Council, he said, is merely an extension of the synodal structures that have long existed in parishes and dioceses with the pastoral councils.

"Consecrated people cannot decide everything - there are too few"

"Is all this wastepaper?" asked Sternberg. "One thing has without question long been wastepaper: the idea that only ordained ministers can decide. This concept is no longer tenable, not least in times of catastrophic priest shortages, and has long since ceased to be enforced in functioning councils." Sternberg was one of the initiators of the Synodal Path in 2019.

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