<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="article-title">The German bishops have declared independence from Rome on same-sex marriage: how far will the rot spread now?</h1>
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<div class="article-author">by <strong><a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/william-oddie/" title="Posts by William Oddie" rel="author">William Oddie</a></strong></div>
<div class="article-date">posted Thursday, 6 Aug 2015<br><a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/08/06/the-german-bishops-have-declared-independence-from-rome-on-same-sex-marriage-how-far-will-the-rot-spread-now/">http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/08/06/the-german-bishops-have-declared-independence-from-rome-on-same-sex-marriage-how-far-will-the-rot-spread-now/</a><br></div>
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<div class="article-featured"><img src="http://d2jkk5z9de9jwi.cloudfront.net/content/uploads/2015/08/20140923cnsto0003-800x500.jpg" class="featured-image wp-post-image" alt="Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops' conference (CNS)" height="500" width="800"> <div class="featured-caption">
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops' conference (CNS) </div>
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<p class="article-standfirst"><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Are we witnessing the beginnings of an international campaign of defiance against the <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">Catholic moral law?</span></b></span></p>
<p>I begin with two apparently different questions, which are, however, closely related.</p>
<p>Have the German bishops moved decisively towards an Anglican-style
(or maybe perhaps a Gallican-style) secession from the doctrinal
authority of Rome?</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Are we witnessing an international liberal-Catholic campaign towards the Church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage?</b></span></p>
<p>Germany first.</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>On July 30, the website of the German Bishops’ Conference <a href="http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/munich-married-lesbian-remains-head-of-day-care-center/">reported</a>
that a woman who heads a Caritas Day Care Centre in Bavaria, had been
asked in April to leave her position due to her announcement <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">that she
was going to “marry” a woman.</span></b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> </b><u><b>The decision has now been rescinded. </b></u></span></p>
<p>Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of the Diocese of Munich, has
agreed to implement immediately new regulations approved by the German
Bishops’ Conference at the end of <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>April 2015, drastically liberalising
the Catholic Church’s disciplinary rules in Germany</b></span>. In the past,
employees who deliberately and persistently did not live according to
the Church’s moral teaching would (as at first happened in this case)
have been asked to leave their position in institutions of the Church.
Not all German bishops accept these new rules, though most do: three
contiguous diocese have declared that they will not implement these
decisions: those of Passau, Regensburg, and Eichstätt (still, it seems,
Ratzinger territory).</p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>Most German dioceses, however, are moving towards declaring
independence from</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>the Magisterium</b></span>. T<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>he German bishops’ conference has
also expressed support for Cardinal Kasper’s campaign to allow</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>the
administration of Holy Communion</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>to civilly divorced and remarried
Catholics. </b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>Another German bishop, however—crucially, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller,
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith— has <a href="http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/07/church-labor-law-in-germany-and-same.html">declared</a>
that doctrinal, or even disciplinary, decisions regarding marriage and
family are not</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>up for determination by national bishops’ conferences.</b></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"><b>“It is an absolutely anti-Catholic idea that does not respect the
Catholicity of the Church,” Cardinal Mueller said when asked,</b></span> “Could
certain doctrinal or disciplinary decisions on marriage and family be
delegated to the episcopal conferences?”</p>
<p>“Episcopal conferences have authority on certain matters, but they
are not a magisterium beside the Magisterium, without the Pope and
without communion with all the bishops,” he continued.</p>
<p>The Cardinal Mueller had been asked for his views on those of another
German Cardinal, about comments made by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is
president of the German bishops’ conference. C<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>ardinal Marx had told
reporters that “We [the German Church] are not a branch of Rome. Each
conference of bishops is responsible for pastoral care in its cultural
context and must preach the Gospel in its own, original way. We cannot
wait for a synod to tell us how we have to shape pastoral care for
marriage and family here.”</b></span></p>
<p>We are not a branch of WHAT? We are not a BRANCH of ROME? But ALL
Catholics are members of Churches which are branches of Rome just as the
branch of a tree grows out of its trunk or it dies: that is why we are
called ROMAN CATHOLICS. And all this talk of being responsible for care
of its own part of the Church “in its pastoral context” is a weaselly
way of saying that the German bishops have a right to determine what
their own version of Catholic DOCTRINE is: <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>when Marx says the German
church “must preach the gospel in its own, original way” he is
unambiguously declaring unilateral doctrinal independence from<span style="background-color:rgb(255,229,153)"> the
teaching authority of the Church.</span> </b></span></p>
<p>The Pope, even if he were minded to, doesn’t of course have the
authority do what one is greatly tempted to say ought to be done: every
dissenting bishop should be fired and replaced. That would lead, of
course to an open schism in the German Church, and possibly the open
secession of the rebellious part of it. Discuss: would that be not such a
bad thing? I’m not sure.</p>
<p>But of course it doesn’t work like that. And it has to be admitted
that there is a tide of lay opinion, even in parts of the Church where
the bishops have remained firm, which is working against what they teach
and do, actively campaigning against them. A recent American example
illustrates this all too vividly. An article in the<a href="http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/fishwrap-once-again-publicly-attacks-the-churchs-moral-teaching/"> National Catholic Reporter</a>, by one Jamie Manson argues as follows:</p>
<p>“It’s beginning to feel like every week brings a new story about the firing of an LGBT employee from a Catholic institution.</p>
<p>“The most recent well-publicised termination happened earlier this
month at Waldron Mercy Academy in Philadelphia. The school declined to
renew the contract of Margie Winters, the school’s director of religious
studies, when it came to light that she is in a same-sex marriage. She
says her administrators were well aware that she was “married” to a
woman. It wasn’t until two parents complained to the Philadelphia
archdiocese that she was terminated.</p>
<p>“In the wake of Winters’ firing, many commentators have suggested
that bishops and Catholic institutions need to show greater mercy and
compassion in dealing with its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
employees….</p>
<p>“As long as Roman Catholic doctrine teaches that same-sex
relationships are sinful and a violation of God’s plan for humanity,
LGBT employees will not be safe in their jobs in Catholic institutions.”</p>
<p>As Fr Zuhlsdorf rejoined, the article argues, quite simply that
mercy and compassion means saying, publicly and with deliberation, that
the Church’s teachings make no difference. And neither does public
scandal. But, as he argues, mercy and compassion are always grounded in
the truth: it is not compassionate to say that Catholics all have the
right to determine according to their whim what moral behaviour consists
of: the road to Hellfire is paved with “rights” like that.</p>
<p>The Church is, I very much fear, at a uniquely dangerous juncture.
Things are not yet (whatever we may think of many of our own bishops) as
bad in the English Church, though they are bad enough, God knows. But
the idea HAS got about that everything, including the Church’s Millenial
teachings on the moral law, is up for grabs. </p>
<p>That is why <span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>I dearly wish the October sessions of the Synod were not
happening. No good can come of them: and potentially considerable harm
could. I still hope, even maintain, that we will probably be OK, and
that Cardinal Kasper will take a nosedive. But the possibility exists
that he won’t. And then we are all in trouble. How long will it be,
then, before the English Bishops’ conference goes the way of their
German brethren?</b></span></p></div>