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On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg.<\/p>\n
On April 17 \u2013 18, 1521, Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms and refused to recant.\u00a0 (See this Reformation timeline<\/a>.)<\/p>\n On April 17, 2021, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the latter event (having missed the first 500th anniversary), the bishops of the German Catholic Church declared themselves to be independent of Rome, changing their doctrine and practices as they believed necessary to conform to German cultural norms and expectations, with the primary goal of meeting the spiritual needs of German church-tax-payers.\u00a0 They promised a revised catechism as soon as a working group completed its task and the full document was brought up for a vote by a conference of clerical and lay delegates, periodic gatherings of which would in the future determine any further changes.\u00a0 From Rome, Pope Francis welcomed the new ecclesial body as colleagues, expressing his hopes for greater synodality in the future, while a minority of churchgoers expressed bewilderment at the proclamation that the new church would authorize same-sex marriages and post-divorce remarriages, and would no longer consider non-marital relationships or contraceptive use to be a topic of any relevance to Catholic teachings on morality.\u00a0 (It was unclear what stand the new body would take on abortion or assisted suicide.)<\/p>\n OK, we don\u2019t know whether that will actually happen.\u00a0 But if it did, it would be in in with what\u2019s going on in Germany and Rome right now.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an English-speaking report, from the Catholic Herald<\/em>, \u201cGerman bishops announce \u2018synodal process\u2019 on celibacy, sexual morality<\/a>,\u201d as the German bishops were finishing up their bishop\u2019s conference, at which observers were waiting for news on actions they would take in light of last summer\u2019s report on past abuse cover-ups.\u00a0 And the announcement came from Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising. (Freising, incidentally, is a small town outside Munich, known now for being the site of its airport but once upon a time significant enough that the diocese was named after both.\u00a0 It\u2019s annoying, though, that they never renamed the diocese.)<\/p>\n Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising has announced that the Catholic Church in Germany is embarking on a \u201cbinding synodal process\u201d to tackle what he says are the three key issues arising from the clerical abuse crisis: priestly celibacy, the Church\u2019s teaching on sexual morality, and a reduction of clerical power.<\/p>\n Speaking at the conclusion of the plenary session of the German bishops\u2019 conference on Thursday, Marx told reporters that the bishops had unanimously decided these three topics would be subject to a process of \u201csynodal progression\u201d that could lead to a binding, but as yet undetermined, outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Church needs synodal progress,\u201d the president of the German bishops\u2019 conference asserted. \u201cPope Francis encourages this.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n Addressing journalists on the final day, Marx said the Church\u2019s teaching on sexual morality has yet to account for significant recent discoveries from theology and the humanities. Also, he said, the significance of sexuality to personhood has not yet received sufficient attention from the Church.<\/p>\n Bishops \u201cfeel we often are unable to speak on questions of present-day sexual behavior,\u201d Marx said.<\/p>\n The cardinal also said that the German bishops appreciate priestly celibacy as an \u201cexpression of the religious bond to God\u201d and do not simply want to give up on it. But to what extent celibacy should always be an element of priestly witness is a question \u201cwe will determine\u201d through the \u201csynodal process,\u201d Marx told the press.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Marx said clerical abuse of power constitutes a betrayal of the trust of people in need of stability and religious orientation. Therefore, the \u201csynodal process\u201d would be charged with identifying what measures must be taken to achieve \u201cthe necessary reduction of [clerical] power.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, with respect to the first two items, at least, this sounds like everything we\u2019ve been told is not true about sexual abuse:\u00a0 there are so many abusers to be found among the ranks of married and those in relationships that it\u2019s not about mandatory celibacy.\u00a0 And we are just as relentlessly told that child sexual abuse is not about homosexuality, or some sort of forced repression of homosexuality resulting in the abuse of children.\u00a0 So what gives?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been trying to find out what this means, and in particular, what \u201crecent discoveries from theology and the humanities\u201d could mean for sexual morality and what the possible range of outcomes on this topic is envisioned to be.\u00a0 Marx has, after all, in the past been vocal about making changes such as same-sex blessings in the name of \u201cpastoral care\u201d<\/a> and, according to a National Catholic Reporter<\/em> report<\/a> on his most recent New Year\u2019s homily, put forth a vague call for \u201cnew thinking\u201d and said that \u201cTruth is not final.\u201d\u00a0 In the original German<\/a>, he calls for \u201c\u201d>eine Vertiefung und Weiterentwicklung der Lehre der Kirche, die immer wieder neu in einer konkreten Situation zur Sprache gebracht werden muss\u201d \u2014 which means something like, \u201cwe need a deepening and a further development of church teachings, which must change in response to new situations.\u201d<\/p>\n But what\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n In part, reading the report of the German version of the Catholic News Agency<\/a>, this still seems to be coming from a sense of \u201cwe f***ed up royally and need to fix it.\u201d\u00a0 But it seems like more:\u00a0 it appears to be, on the one hand, a handing-over of the reins to a \u201creformist\u201d segment as a sort of atoning for sins; at the same time, it\u2019s not clear to me to what degree Marx and others have decided that they can use the scandal to further their agenda.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s both.<\/p>\n The Sueddeutsche Zeitung<\/em><\/a>, in fact, reported on the situation on Sunday, and made it clear that Marx considers the way forward, the way to, well, at least slow the church\u2019s decline, to be an agenda of \u201creform\u201d both in terms of the church\u2019s organizational structure and revisions to sexual moral teachings.<\/p>\n Als einzelne Di\u00f6zesanratsmitglieder den Reformeifer bremsen wollen und etwa sagen, die L\u00f6sung liege einfach darin, mehr zu beten und den Glauben in die Familien zur\u00fcckzubringen, da antwortet der Kardinal: Man m\u00fcsse daf\u00fcr Sorge tragen, dass die frohe Botschaft des christlichen Glaubens f\u00fcr die Menschen \u00fcberhaupt eine frohe sei und keine der Angst, der Langeweile oder schlicht der Vergangenheit. \u201cFr\u00fcher war alles besser: Wer das denkt, gewinnt die Zukunft nicht.\u201d<\/p>\n When individual members of the diocesan council want to slow down the reform zeal and say that the solution is simply to pray more and bring families back to the faith, the cardinal replies: we must ensure that the good news of the Christian faith brings the people happiness, and not fear, boredom or simply memories of the past. \u201cEverything used to be better: if you think that, you will not win the future.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And here\u2019s a sentence I\u2019m not sure how to interpret, in discussing church administrative changes:<\/p>\n Und k\u00fcnftig wolle man bei der Zuweisung von Seelsorgern nicht mehr nur auf die Katholikenzahl in einer Gemeinde sehen, sondern auf alle Menschen, erkl\u00e4rt der kirchliche Personalchef Klaus Peter Franzl.<\/p>\n And in the future, one would no longer want to look at the number of Catholics in a congregation when assigning pastors, but instead the total population, explains church director Klaus Peter Franzl.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So what does Marx believe?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a recent report from his diocese\u2019s website:\u00a0 \u201cMarx: \u2018Church must clear up and throw off ballast\u2019<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n After some of the same sorts of calls to get rid of the \u201cballast\u201d that is holding the church back, he says that the church must march out with a \u201cliberating message\u201d such as that of Pope Francis, that \u201cthe one human family belongs together,\u201d that we should overcome hatred and help the poor and oppressed.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what he had to say at his Easter sermon last year, according to the Abendzeitung<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n The encounter with Christ empowers believers in the \u201chope that a coexistence of people of different beliefs and cultures can succeed, because we are human together.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n