Synodalists run out of money. Synodal Path office closed. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

The first effects of the veto of the four bishops against the further work in the Synodal Committee are already noticeable on July 1: the Synodal Office stops its work. The social media channels are already being frozen.

The Synodal Path no longer has its own office. From July 1st, the entire Synodal office will be closed, a spokeswoman for the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) announced on Thursday at the request of catholic.de. The first visible consequence of the lack of follow-up financing of the reform project by the Association of German Dioceses (VDD) is the temporary suspension of the social media channels of the synodal path. "From July 1st, due to the lack of funding, there will be no position available," the spokeswoman continued.

According to the Synodal Path on Instagram and Facebook, the channels would be suspended with immediate effect until the synodal committee reactivated them. After three years of intensive discussions, dialogues and reform efforts, the synodal path reached an important intermediate step in March 2023. "Now we are going into the phase of implementation at the regional and, of course, universal church level," the statement continued. The channels were previously managed by employees of the synodal office.

The Office of the Synodal Path was responsible for all content-related and organizational questions of the Synodal Path. The project office was staffed by employees from the two sponsors, the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and the DBK. Last week, the DBK announced that the VDD could not decide on the financing of the synodal committee. Decisions about the VDD budget must be made unanimously by the 27 diocesan bishops. Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne and Bishops Gregor Maria Hanke (Eichstätt), Stefan Oster (Passau) and Rudolf Voderholzer (Regensburg) voted against financing the further work of the synodal path. Nevertheless, the majority of German bishops want to support the Synodal Committee. Alternative financing methods should be found for this purpose.

Source

Some readers will be familar with the response of Sergeant Major Williams to such concerning news