The Vatican on Thursday put the brakes on a German progressive movement that seeks to give people Catholics a voice on doctrinal issues like homosexuality and women priests, claiming that doing so runs the risk of sparking a schism in the entire Church.
The so-called “Synodal Path” was warned in a brief but strong statement that it had no right to presume to educate bishops on theology or morality. The co-chairs of the initiative retorted that they had not made such a claim and expressed surprise.
The movement has been loud in its demands that the Vatican permit priests to marry, permit women to become priests, and permit the Church to sanction same-sex partnerships. It regularly brings together equal numbers of bishops and ordinary German Catholics.
Although not the largest church in the world, Germany’s church wields great power due to the massive amounts of money it receives via publicly collected church taxes. Cologne, its biggest diocese, has more money than the Vatican.
