Den katolske kirken i Tyskland fortsetter arbeidet med å få i stand felleskommunion med protestanter

National Catholic Register skriver om den stadig alvorligere spenningen mellom de tyske biskopene og Vatikanet:

Despite Pope Francis’ warnings, the leaders of the Church in Germany have refused to back down on their promotion of intercommunion or to change the course on their much-criticized ‘synodal path.’

As reports emerged recently of Pope Francis’ “dramatic concern” about the state of the Catholic Church in Germany and news that he received Germany’s apostolic nuncio for private talks on Monday, the country’s bishops pressed ahead on their goal of shared Communion with Protestants despite strong objections from the Vatican.

The leaders of both churches said their intercommunion proposal “still needs to be clarified” even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said last month that differences in the Catholic and Protestant understanding of the Eucharist were “still so grave” that they ruled out attendance at each other’s services.

The increasing divergence between Rome and the German bishops, amplified by the ongoing Synodal Path — a two-year reform program of German bishops and laity that questions some of the Church’s established teaching on faith and morals — demonstrates the real dangers of the Church in Germany one day breaking with Rome.

In September, a leading German prelate raised the possibility of schism for the first time.

Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne warned that the “worst outcome would be if the Synodal Path leads to schism” and that the “worst thing” would be if a “German national church were to be created here.”

Such a prospect is something Pope Francis appears increasingly concerned about, despite his own efforts to grant more autonomy to bishops’ conferences on doctrinal matters which critics have warned has sowed the seeds of a kind of “doctrinal anarchy” in the Church.

Cardinal Kurt Koch of Switzerland, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said last month that the Pope had expressed his concern about the Church in Germany “in personal conversations.”

Bishop Heinz-Josef Algermissen of Fulda in central Germany, where the intercommunion proposal was discussed at the end of September, said the Pope had expressed “dramatic concern” about the Church in Germany when he spoke to him after the general audience Oct. 7, although in neither case was it clear that he was explicitly concerned about schism.

The bishop recalled a letter the Pope wrote to German Catholics in June 2019, supporting the Synodal Path but urging them to focus on evangelization. The Pope reportedly complained that his message had been ignored.

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