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German bishops want to modernize the church. Are they getting too far ahead of Pope Francis?
Source: Washington Post
German bishops want to modernize the church. Are they getting too far ahead of Pope Francis?
By Chico Harlan
11/1/2019, 8:39:46 a.m.
ESSEN, Germany — Among those who believe the Catholic Church must liberalize to save itself from perpetual decline, some of the staunchest advocates are church leaders here in Germany.
Some German bishops have spoken in favor of abandoning the celibacy requirement for priests and vaulting women into leadership roles that are now off-limits. Some have urged updating the Vatican’s stern stance on sexual morality, saying the church can’t afford to be out of touch or alienating. Earlier this year, one bishop spoke so understandingly of homosexuality that a 53-year-old priest in a nearby town came out as gay and thanked the bishop for opening the door.
“The old times are over,” that bishop, Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, had written to the members of his diocese, saying that his own views were evolving amid the church’s “dramatic loss of credibility and trust.”
But as Germany tests the boundaries of how much Catholicism can bend to the modern age, it is emerging as a center of tension within the divided global church.
Much of the concern originates in the United States, where some traditionalist bishops, along with Catholic conservative media outlets, are opposed to Pope Francis’s advocacy of a more inclusive faith. They say Francis is diluting moral teaching, pushing an anti-capitalist, pro-migrant agenda, and sowing confusion about what the church stands for. And Germany, they say, is a country whose appetite for change threatens to outpace that of the pontiff himself.
-snip-
By Chico Harlan
11/1/2019, 8:39:46 a.m.
ESSEN, Germany — Among those who believe the Catholic Church must liberalize to save itself from perpetual decline, some of the staunchest advocates are church leaders here in Germany.
Some German bishops have spoken in favor of abandoning the celibacy requirement for priests and vaulting women into leadership roles that are now off-limits. Some have urged updating the Vatican’s stern stance on sexual morality, saying the church can’t afford to be out of touch or alienating. Earlier this year, one bishop spoke so understandingly of homosexuality that a 53-year-old priest in a nearby town came out as gay and thanked the bishop for opening the door.
“The old times are over,” that bishop, Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, had written to the members of his diocese, saying that his own views were evolving amid the church’s “dramatic loss of credibility and trust.”
But as Germany tests the boundaries of how much Catholicism can bend to the modern age, it is emerging as a center of tension within the divided global church.
Much of the concern originates in the United States, where some traditionalist bishops, along with Catholic conservative media outlets, are opposed to Pope Francis’s advocacy of a more inclusive faith. They say Francis is diluting moral teaching, pushing an anti-capitalist, pro-migrant agenda, and sowing confusion about what the church stands for. And Germany, they say, is a country whose appetite for change threatens to outpace that of the pontiff himself.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/german-bishops-want-to-modernize-the-catholic-church-are-they-getting-too-far-ahead-of-pope-francis/2019/11/01/e4259520-e457-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html
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