Pope: German Church reform more ideological than improving unity

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Pope Francis, the religious leader of World Catholic churches, believed reforms in German Catholic church are more harmfully ideological than helping the unity among all Christians.

Pope Francis warned there’s a risk that a reform process in the German Catholic Church over calls for married priests and other possible liberalizing reforms are more elite.

“Married priests, female deacons, and church blessings for same-sex couples” are fields can be undergone some reformations.

In an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican on Tuesday, Francis said that while dialogue is good, “the German experience does not help.”

He said the doesn’t involve “all the people of God.”

Francis says the goal must always be unity.

Seeking to assuage Vatican concerns, German church leaders have insisted the process won’t trigger a schism.

The German process, dubbed the “Synodal Path,” was launched in 2019 in response to the sex abuse crisis rocking the church in Germany, where Christians are roughly evenly split between Catholics and Protestants.

Francis said the German process is neither helpful nor serious, and contrasted it with a global consultation of the Catholic faithful that he has convened that will culminate with two big meetings at the Vatican this October and next.

“Here the danger is that something very, very ideological trickles in. When ideology gets involved in church processes, the Holy Spirit goes home, because ideology overcomes the Holy Spirit,” Francis said.

For the global Catholic Church, Francis has called for a two-part synod, or assembly, that will bring bishops and laity to discuss the future direction of the church and ways in which it can rejuvenate its mission.