German ‘Synodality’ and the World Church

COMMENTARY: Some questions to consider on the eve of the Synod on Synodality in Rome.

In a recent interview with The Pillar, Frank Ronge, a veteran German Catholic bureaucrat who coordinates the German Synodal Path, described the Synodaler Weg’s rationale and work. Many of those deeply engaged in the Synodal Path imagine it as a model for the world Church – or at least those parts of the world Church that aren’t a bit behind the cultural curve as construed by enlightened Germans. It’s thus worth asking some questions about the German experience of “synodality,” with an eye to what that experience might suggest about other paths of renewal in other ecclesial circumstances – or indeed about the path to be taken by Synod 2024 in Rome over the next month. 

The first question involves the origins of the Synodaler Weg, which began, Dr. Ronge said, as a response to revelations of sexual abuse of the young by German clergy — revelations that made the proclamation of the Gospel “impossible.” Really? Judging by the plummeting levels of Catholic practice throughout Germany since the 1960s, one might have thought that the proclamation of the Gospel had been on life support long before the abuse crisis broke in Germany in 2010.  

Moreover, and for all the pain, embarrassment, and disruption the abuse crisis caused in the United States, the proclamation of the Gospel continued in America, and the crisis prompted serious reforms, not least in seminaries. Was that impossible in Germany? Or did some German Catholics use the media assault on institutional Catholicism’s coverup of gross wickedness to weaponize the abuse crisis, making it the rationale for creating a New Model Church that would be more “acceptable” to post-modern society and culture?   

Then there was Dr. Ronge’s claim — an echo of a persistent theme at Synod 2023 last October – that synoding, so to speak, is just a matter of listening to the Holy Spirit. Catholics, Dr. Ronge said, must “hold onto the Holy Spirit” and say, “Holy Spirit, guide us.” Many Catholics, of course, pray that every day, and the Holy Spirit remains as capable of surprising us as when those tongues of fire descended on the Upper Room at the first Christian Pentecost. But why does the Holy Spirit, speaking in Germany, always speak in the language of German Catholic progressivism? 

 Can the Holy Spirit really be calling the Church to abandon structures of ecclesial governance whose evolution over time the Holy Spirit presumably inspired? How can the Holy Spirit teach us one thing about the ethics of human love and the nature of marriage for two millennia, and then “surprise” us by calling the Church to jettison that teaching in the twenty-first century? Can the Holy Spirit contradict the Holy Spirit?  

As for the German Synodal Path’s relationship to the world Church, Dr. Ronge noted that, among the questions “we ask the Pope and the whole world to discern,” are those involving the ordination of women as deacons and priests: “We have asked the Pope not to close that question.” But the Pope has indeed said that the diaconate question is closed, so why hasn’t the Synodaler Weg gotten that memo? (The same might be asked of the folks at America Media, which was agitating the women-and-diaconate question in the weeks before Synod 2024, despite the Pope having removed it from the Synod’s agenda.) 

Dr. Ronge says that the Germans just want these matters discussed. They have been discussed for decades, however, and the answer to that discussion was given by Pope John Paul II in the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which taught definitively that the Church has no authority to ordain women to the priesthood. And if Holy Orders is one sacrament with three grades (as the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1593 states), the Church’s inability to ordain women to the priesthood must extend to the other two grades, diaconate and episcopate, as well.  

The truth of the matter is that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is one among many authoritative teachings that the German Church (and others) have not “received” – which is the polite term for saying “have rejected.” Why not admit that, rather than calling for another round of “dialogue” analogous to kittens chasing their tails? Why not proceed to the serious discussion, which is about affirming women in their many roles as evangelists, while calling those parts of the world Church where that evangelical role is stifled to reform?  

More candor about the motivations of the German Synodal path and its vision of the Catholic future would be helpful in determining what, if anything, it has to offer the world Church at Synod 2024.