Tuesday 19th March 2024

Home » Featured Today » Currently Reading:

Intense Conflicts . . . Is The Catholic Church In Germany In Danger Of Apostasy?

May 25, 2015 Featured Today No Comments

By MAIKE HICKSON

For several weeks now, the German Catholics — bishops and laymen alike — have been in debate and disagreement over Catholic moral teaching and its continuing validity for Catholics today. After the German Bishops’ Conference came out on April 16 with its report to be sent to Rome for the upcoming October 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family, the prominent lay organization Central Committee of German Catholics (Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken — ZDK) also published a statement about their proposals for the upcoming Synod of Bishops. Let us now consider both reports.
In their own report of April 16, the German Bishops’ Conference sums up the opinion of those who responded to the questionnaire about marriage and the family as promulgated and circulated by the Vatican in the October 2014 Lineamenta. In their press release of April 20, they say:
“The responses show, that the model of marriage and family still finds broad acceptance among the faithful. However, for the most part, they [those who responded to the questions] expect an increased understanding of the responsible Church authorities toward those forms of life that do not fully correspond to this model.
“Most commentaries answered those questions that relate to the question of how to deal with remarried divorcees, with couples who live together in a mere civil marriage or without any marriage certificate and with homosexual couples. In this matter, a majority of the faithful expect a further development of the Church’s teaching and a greater openness toward the current life reality.”
With this report, the German bishops show that the German Catholic faithful, in large numbers, do not anymore concur with the moral teaching of the Church concerning marriage and the family; and they argue in favor of a relaxing of the Church’s earlier discipline. Already in February of 2015, the head of the German bishops, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, boldly indicated that the German bishops might allow remarried divorcees to receive Holy Communion, independently of what Rome may decide.
Now, on May 9, 2015, the ZDK (Central Committee of German Catholics) goes one step further and not only called for the admittance of “remarried” divorcees to the sacraments, but also for an acceptance of many forms of cohabitation, for the blessing of homosexual couples, and even for a “reconsidering of the question of contraception.” Their document says:
“With the notion ‘family,’ we also mean those nonmarital forms of lived partnerships and of generational responsibility which make a great contribution to the societal cohesion and which have to be treated justly. . . . Also in other forms of communal living are values to be found which signify the marriage as the covenant between God and men: the unbreakable [sic] ‘yes’ to the other person, the constant readiness to reconcile, as well as the perspective upon a fruitful relationship in exchanging gifts of persons.
“These forms of living and family have to be honored, even if they are not to be found in the form of the sacramental marriage. We think here of enduring partnerships [cohabitation], civil marriages, as well as civilly registered partnerships [i.e., homosexual unions].”
More stunningly, perhaps, the document also calls for a “reevaluation of the methods of artificial contraception, since in no other area is there to be found such a great discrepancy between the papal Magisterium and the personal conscientious decisions in the daily life of most faithful Catholics.”
It further requests that the Church be disposed “to perceive the pastoral change that Pope Francis has called for, both as an encouragement and as a chance for the Bishops’ Conferences [then] to develop pastoral walking paths [sic] concerning marriage and the family that are appropriate and theologically responsible.”
It is of worth, moreover, to note that both organizations — the German Bishops’ Conference as well as the Central Committee ZDK — introduce the same arguments and general lines of thought, namely that the life realities of the Catholics of today decisively have to influence and change the Catholic moral teaching. Both groups assent that there are good elements to be found in other forms of relationships outside of the Sacrament of Marriage, and that the purported Sensus Fidelium — the sense of the faithful — has to be taken into account.
Several of these arguments seem in part to derive from the writings of Walter Cardinal Kasper, himself a promoter of the liberalization of the Catholic moral teaching. The combined or converging proposals also indicate that these organizations now work rather closely together in an attempt to pressure the universal Church into agreeing with this form of heresy, which is far away from the continuous traditional moral teaching of the Catholic Church.
Since the claims of the lay organization ZDK have been so bold and even explicitly revolutionary, they caused several counter-reactions in Germany. Several German bishops have now come out and declared their resistance to these gravely dangerous and objectively heretical statements that, in the eyes of the well-respected and well-informed Rome correspondent, Edward Pentin, could well lead to a schism.
The first bishop, Most Rev. Stefan Oster, SDB, of the Diocese of Passau in southern Germany, declared on his Facebook page that the ZDK barely represents the German Catholics anymore when speaking thus. He stated that “the requests of the ZDK would mean a dramatic change of much that has been held to be valid concerning marriage and sexuality” and restates the doctrine that, following Revelation, any “lived sexual practice has its only legitimate place within a marriage between a man and a woman, both of whom are open to the procreation of life and both of whom have made a bond that lasts until the death of one of the spouses.”
Bishop Oster rebukes the ZDK for leaving out the “Biblical image of man and the Biblical understanding of Revelation. And it is very troubling for me that it [the ZDK] goes along this path obviously together with the majority of its representatives.”
His comments were supported on May 16 by five other German bishops who wrote to him a letter of gratitude.
Another German bishop, Most Rev. Franz-Josef Overbeck, recently made the statement that one should not have overly high expectations of the upcoming Synod of Bishops concerning marriage and the family, and that he himself does not see any way for the Catholic Church to bless homosexual unions, saying: “That is legally not possible for me.”
The German author and critic, Mathias von Gersdorff, has additionally pointed out that, in the document of the ZDK, the expressed ends of marriage are severed from the primary end of marriage, the procreation of life. He says: “The document [of the ZDK] makes clear that sexual acts may also be practiced outside of marriage, and that the primary end of marriage is not procreation.” He comments:
“If marriage is not primarily for procreation, and the sexual act is not only to be practiced within marriages, then the Catholic moral teaching will collapse altogether. Therefore, the ZDK might as well have demanded from the Synod [of Bishops on the Family] that they abandon the [Church’s] teaching on marriage and sexual morality altogether….Nobody needs a ZDK which is not at all Catholic anymore.”
Facing such resistance, the head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Marx, came out on May 15, saying in a press release that the propositions of the ZDK are “theologically unacceptable.” He continues:
“The demand for a blessing of same-sex partnerships and for a second marriage after a civil divorce is not in accordance with the teaching and tradition of the Church. The claim for an ‘unconditional acceptance’ of forms of cohabitation in same-sex partnerships also contradicts the teaching and tradition of the Church.”
These words from Cardinal Marx come as a surprise and might show that he has realized (although perhaps unwillingly) that there is too much resistance (at least for the moment) against his own liberal agenda. As von Gersdorff puts it:
“The Catholic Church of Germany with its positions is completely isolated with respect to the upcoming Synod on the Family in the fall of 2015. No delegation except the German delegation supports unanimously the ideas of Cardinal Kasper concerning the admittance of remarried divorcees to Holy Communion.”
However, as von Gersdorff also realistically points out, Cardinal Marx has still kept his options open by saying at the end of his press release that these themes “are in need of further theological clarification and not of premature, simplifying claims.”
Further confirmation for reasonable suspicion about Cardinal Marx’s true intentions and methods is the fact that, only two days before Cardinal Marx’s own press release, a reporter of the German bishops’ own official website, katholisch.de, came out with a strong defense of the ZDK’s statement. For, on May 13, the journalist Felix Neumann said:
“For more and more Catholics, the question how to deal with homosexuals has become a question of conscience. They [as well as I] do not want any more to do damage to the life luck [sic] of people whose nature is just as it is, and whose love is directed toward a person who has the same sex, and not the opposite sex.”
And Neumann concludes with a typical progressive (and sentimental) twist by accusing those who hold on to Christ’s teaching as being cold and heartless:
“That there is this decision [by the ZDK], is not the scandal. But it is a scandal that it is still necessary to demand respect and estimation for [homosexual] love.”
The battle for the German Catholic Church is definitely not yet over. It therefore seems reasonable and even urgent for all concerned Catholics to stay attentive and to make a contribution, wherever possible, to strengthen the traditional teaching of the Church on marriage and the family so as to ensure that the teachings of Jesus Christ will not be derided or unfaithfully weakened.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

Irreverent funeral service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for trans activist sparks outcry

A raucous funeral liturgy for a high-profile trans activist and sex-worker advocate was held Thursday in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, sparking an outcry on social media that the iconic church was misused to advance an ideological agenda at odds with Catholic teaching. The Manhattan cathedral hosted the Feb. 15 funeral service for Cecilia Gentili, an activist who helped to decriminalize sex work in New York, lobbied for “gender identity” to be added as…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)