Next synod stage: Anything but "light luggage"

HTML-Elemente (z.B. Videos) sind ausgeblendet. Zum Einblenden der Elemente aktivieren Sie hier die entsprechenden Cookies.

I arrived in Rome on Saturday evening. For the next four weeks, I will once again be living in a special situation that has very little to do with what usually characterises my everyday life. With hundreds of bishops and cardinals, a number of other synod participants, theological advisors, always accompanied by a still interested public, we will once again be sitting around round tables, listening to each other, talking a lot, struggling for concrete formulations in the drafting of our respective reports and also completing a rather dense and demanding programme with various other meetings and events. These weeks will not be a walk in the park for any of the participants - they will be hard work.

Incidentally, you wouldn't believe what you take with you when you're travelling for four weeks! "Light luggage" looks different! It's not just suitcases and backpacks with clothes, washing kit and everything else you need or think you need that I have to lug around. I also have to carry a few briefcases with documents for the synod. Even though a lot of things are now accessible digitally, I still have one or two documents packed in paper form that I have written something down in, marked something in and would like to have to hand without having to search too hard.

In addition to this physical luggage, I am bringing a lot more with me to Rome for this final stage of the Synod on Synodality. These are the experiences of the past few years: the memories of the negotiations at the continental meeting in Prague and what we already experienced last year in October. It is the "conversations in the Holy Spirit" that not only characterised the atmosphere in the synod hall, but also showed me and many others a way of dealing with divergent opinions and positions in the church and perhaps beyond in an appreciative and not immediately confrontational manner.

In addition, there is what we have initiated and addressed in Germany in recent years with the Synodal Path. I can't just leave that at home. Because many members of the Synod keep asking us Germans about it. There is a sense of curiosity, but also great concern and a lot of scepticism. It is important to courageously seek dialogue and answer everyone's questions. This is the only way to increase understanding and reduce resentment.

And finally, I am also taking with me to Rome the hopes and expectations, but also the fears of many people who have written to us participants in the Synod and spoken out in public. Many are calling on us not to accept muzzles, but to courageously tackle the "hot potatoes" and not mince our words when it comes to the rights of women and their admission to ordained ministries in the Church, for example. Others, on the other hand, demand the exact opposite from us: not to give in to the "woke mainstream of the creeping Protestantisation of Catholicism", as one letter to me put it. Similarly different expectations were also formulated with regard to people who feel marginalised by the church and discriminated against in their life plans: Some appeal to us to stand up for the acceptance of queer people in the church, while others admonish us not to betray the moral teachings of the church, but to continue to "call sin what sin is". Expectations of the synod participants also differ when it comes to the question of genuine participation of all in decision-making processes in the church. The structures of the church should finally be democratised and perhaps consideration should be given to transferring offices on a temporary basis. This is the only way to protect against clericalist abuse of power and to develop credible prevention and sanction mechanisms with regard to the crime of sexualised abuse and its systematic cover-up over decades. Others, on the other hand, emphasise that the sacramentality of the ministry and the hierarchical structure of the church are part of the very proprium of Catholicism and that the evil of clericalism and the criminal wound of abuse in the church must therefore be combated in a different way than by simply squinting at structures, which is ultimately just another question of power - we know all these discussions well enough.

To be honest. I feel almost overwhelmed by the abundance of expectations and demands placed on us as participants and on this synod as such. But be that as it may: I brought all of this with me to Rome for the Synod. I couldn't leave it at home. These are the issues that have characterised the life of the Church not only in our country, but also worldwide for years and will continue to be on our minds in the coming years and decades.

Will we find answers to all these questions in the coming weeks? I doubt it. And I believe that those responsible for the Synod also had these doubts when they set up the ten working groups whose interim reports we will receive during the Synod. The concern was probably too great that the whole assembly could break up over the treatment of individual "hot" topics and thus lose the actual purpose of the Synod, namely to define the framework for decision-making in a globalised and diverse church for the coming decades.

However, I think that if we decide on the points named in the "Instrumentum Laboris" in a world church manner and by consensus, then this synodal assembly will have been truly successful. For me, this includes transparency, accountability at all levels of church decision-making, genuine participation and co-responsibility of the laity - men and (!) women - in making decisions in the church, the fight against self-referential clericalism, serious efforts to change priestly training, openness to new ministries, including for women, credible endeavours to no longer exclude anyone, a deepened ecumenical witness and, above all, a new - Catholic - understanding of synodality in the sense of a spiritual togetherness of all the baptised instead of a confrontation between laity and clergy and a deepened awareness that every office in the Church is first and foremost a service and not a privilege.

And we can contribute a great deal to all these issues from our concrete German experience. Because many of these issues have been and are being considered very intensively in Germany for years. However, I do not know whether this will be enough to fulfil the expectations that many of our faithful have formulated in the run-up to this Synod. But I am convinced that God's spirit has staying power.