Let local churches decide morality or God through scripture?
Only a few
days ahead of the then-upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family, two major lay
organizations in Germany – the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and
the Association of the German Catholic Youth (BDKJ) – have both made statements
detailing their wishes for the outcome of the Synod.
The official website of the German Bishops' Conference, katholisch.de, quotes the President of the German Catholic Youth Organization, Wolfgang Ehrenlechner, saying that he would be disappointed if the Synod, “will merely make a recommendation that one should treat the remarried divorcees in a more generous manner.” He hoped the Church would accept the empirical factual disparities, i.e. the worldwide cultural differences, so that the local churches themselves, “based on the Christian Faith, may lead their own discussions about how the faithful can lead their personal lives in their varied relationships, in light of a Christian responsibility.”
Ehrenlechner also said on Thursday, October 1, in Düsseldorf, Germany:
The official website of the German Bishops' Conference, katholisch.de, quotes the President of the German Catholic Youth Organization, Wolfgang Ehrenlechner, saying that he would be disappointed if the Synod, “will merely make a recommendation that one should treat the remarried divorcees in a more generous manner.” He hoped the Church would accept the empirical factual disparities, i.e. the worldwide cultural differences, so that the local churches themselves, “based on the Christian Faith, may lead their own discussions about how the faithful can lead their personal lives in their varied relationships, in light of a Christian responsibility.”
Ehrenlechner also said on Thursday, October 1, in Düsseldorf, Germany:
Therefore, we hope that
the Synod accepts the cultural differences between local churches and that it
puts more trust in the consciences of the faithful, rather than in the
communication of individual norms of interdiction.
Ehrenlechner
pleaded for an accepting attitude toward homosexual couples, saying:
We work for the
acceptance of same-sex relationships. However, even though we consider this
attitude to be the right one, we cannot and do not want to impose it upon other
local churches. What we need is more courage for diversity, also between local
churches.
The
female speaker for ZdK, Birgit Mock, addressed the same issues in Bonn,
Germany, and promoted the idea of moral diversity within the Church. For her,
it will be a “test for the 'pastoral change' as expressed by Pope Francis,” to
see if the individual bishops' conferences “receive more freedom in order to
develop standards that are fitting for their area of competence and in order to
define how the pastoral care should deal – in accordance with the Gospels –
with those people who have failed in their marriages.”
Both
speakers recognize that their own liberal agendas are not welcome in the whole
Church and thus are proposing that local churches and bishops' conferences may
define their own moral standards and guidelines in place of the defined
universal doctrines of the Church derived from sacred tradition and the
unchangeable words of Christ.
On
7 October, the President of the ZdK, Alois Glück, echoed the
sentiments, saying with reference to the Synod that we need
“less centralism and more regional freedoms, as the proper connection between
unity and diversity.” We should thus not have, he added, “unified rules for
each and every thing.”
German
Catholic and pro-life activist Mathias von
Gersdorff suggests that
those promoting the reforms in Germany, including the German
Bishops' Conference itself, have recently downgraded their hopes for
change coming from the Synod.
