The president of the German Bishops’ Conference has announced the bylaws for the German synodal conference are still under review in Rome. Source: EWTN News.
The synodal conference is intended to serve as a permanent body implementing the controversial German Synodal Way. The Vatican continues to review the bylaws of this new national-level body, which is to consist of bishops and non-bishops.
“The statutes are currently being reviewed in Rome,” Bishop Heiner Wilmer of Münster said in an interview on Sunday with the Kirche+Leben website.
“I know from those responsible there that it will still take some time. I am confident that we will make progress on this.”
Bishop Wilmer confirmed what he had already hinted at in May: “Personally, I do not expect us to meet as early as November, given the dynamics involved, because the matter is being passed from one dicastery to the next.”
The first meeting of the new German body was scheduled for November 6–7 in Stuttgart. The next session was then scheduled to take place in Würzburg on April 16–17, 2027.
The synodal conferenceʼs bylaws have been under review in Rome since the end of March. Nearly half a year has now passed. That leaves just over two months until the originally planned date in November.
Originally, the German organisers had planned a permanent “Synodal Council”.
The issue regarding the bylaws that remains contentious is that of joint deliberation and decision-making by diocesan bishops and non-bishops, which has met with resistance in the Vatican, at least in recent years.
Specifically, the bylaws state that the synodal conference “deliberates and makes decisions in the spirit of ‘synodal decision-making processes’” on important issues of Church life of supra-diocesan significance.
Despite all the criticism of the Synodal Way, the Vatican under Pope Francis – and now under Pope Leo XIV – has never formally demanded that the process, with its sometimes radical attempts to change traditional Church teaching, be terminated, nor has it demanded that bodies be established only in ways that are unproblematic under canon law and that already exist at all levels in Germany.
Meanwhile, in his interview with Kirche+Leben, Bishop Wilmer emphasised: “For me, the Church is synodal. I associate synodality with deep respect and great appreciation. We can only move forward if we journey together.”
FULL STORY
Vatican still hasn’t approved Germany’s new synodal body, bishop says (By Martin Bürger, EWTN News)
