<div dir="ltr"><div><span class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-drop-cap">AN OPEN LETTER TO CARDINAL REINHARD MARX</span></div><div><span class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-drop-cap"><br></span></div><div><span class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-drop-cap">Y</span>our Eminence:</div><div id="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-system" class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-main-content m_-2749436303400257072gmail-container"><div class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-main"><div class="m_-2749436303400257072gmail-primary"><div>
<p>I noted with interest your recent announcement of a “binding synodal
process” during which the Church in Germany will discuss the celibacy of
the Latin-rite Catholic priesthood, the Church’s sexual ethic, and
clericalism, these being “issues” put on the table by the crisis of
clerical sexual abuse. </p>
<p>Perhaps the following questions will help sharpen your discussions.
</p>
<p>1) <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>How can the “<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)">synodal process</span>” of a<span style="background-color:rgb(217,234,211)"> local Church</span> produce “binding”
results on matters affecting<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> the entire Catholic Church</span>? </b></span>The Anglican
Communion tried this and is now in terminal disarray; the local Anglican
churches that took the path of cultural accommodation are comatose. Is
this the model you and your fellow-bishops favor?
</p>
<p>2) <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>What does <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">the celibacy of priests in the Latin rite </span>have to do
with the sexual abuse crisis</b></span>?<span style="background-color:rgb(249,203,156)"><b> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">Celibacy</span> has no more to do with <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">sexual
abuse </span>than<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> marriage</span> has to do with <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">spousal abuse</span>.</b></span> Empirical studies
indicate that most sexual abuse of the young takes place within
(typically broken) families; Protestant denominations with a married
clergy also suffer from the scourge of sexual abuse; and in any event,
marriage is not a crime-prevention program. Is it cynical to imagine
that the abuse crisis is now being weaponized to mount an assault on
clerical celibacy, what with other artillery having failed to dislodge
this ancient Catholic tradition?
</p>
<p>3) According to a Catholic News Agency report, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>you suggested that
“the significance of sexuality to personhood has not yet received
sufficient attention from the Church.”</b></span> Really<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">?</span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"> Has </span><b>St. John Paul II’s
Theology of the Body</b></span> not been translated into German? Perhaps it has,
but it may be too long and complex to have been properly absorbed by
German-speaking Catholics. Permit me, then, to draw your attention to
pp. 347–358 of <i>Zeuge der Hoffnung</i> (Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2002), the German translation of <i>Witness to Hope</i>,
the first volume of my John Paul II biography. There, you and your
colleagues will find a summary o<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>f the Theology of the Body, including
its richly personalistic explanation of the Church’s ethic of human love
and its biblically-rooted understanding of celibacy undertaken for the
Kingdom of God.
</b></span></p>
<p>4) <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>You also note that your fellow-bishops “feel...unable to speak on
questions of present-day sexual behavior.” That was certainly not the
case at the Synods of 2014, 2015, and 2018, where German bishops felt
quite able to speak frequently to these questions, albeit in a way that
typically mirrored today’s politically-correct fashions</b></span>. And I’m sure
I’m not alone in wondering just when the German episcopate last spoke to
“present-day sexual behavior” in a way that promoted the Church’s ethic
of human love as life-affirming and ordered to human happiness and
fulfillment, at least in the years since its <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>massive dissent from</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b><i>Humanae Vitae</i>
(Pope St. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on the ethics of family planning)</b></span>.
But that, as I understand Pope Francis, is what he is calling us all to
do: Witness to, preach, and teach the “Yes” that undergirds everything
to which the Church must, in fidelity to both revelation and reason, say
“No.” </p>
<p>5) The CNA report also noted that <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>your “synodal process” (which, in a
nice tip of the miter to Hegel, you described as a “synodal
progression”) would involve consultations with</b></span> the Central Committee of
German Catholics. My dear Cardinal Marx,<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> this is rather like President
Trump consulting with Fox News or Speaker Pelosi consulting with the
editors of the <i>New York Times</i>. I</b></span>f you’ll pardon the reference to Major Heinrich Strasser in <i>Casablanca, </i>even we blundering Americans know that the ZdK, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>the <i>Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken</i>, is the <i>schwerpunkt, </i>the
spearhead that clears the ground to the far left so that the German
bishops can position themselves as the “moderate” or “centrist” force </b></span>in
the German Church. You know, and I know, and everyone else should know
that<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> consultations with the ZdK will produce nothing but further attacks
on <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">celibacy</span>,</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>further affirmations of current sexual fads, and further
deprecations of</b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b><i>Humanae Vitae</i></b></span> <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>(based, in part, on the ZdK’s
evident ignorance of</b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b> the Theology of the Body </b></span><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>and German hostility to </b></span>
<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical on the renovation of Catholic moral
theology, <i>Veritatis Splendor</i>). </b></span></p>
<p>Your Eminence,<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b> the German <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">Church</span></b></span>—the Catholicism of my ancestors—<span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>is
dying<span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">. It </span>will not be revitalized by becoming a simulacrum of moribund
liberal Protestantism.
</b></span></p>
<p>I wish you a fruitful Lent and a joyful Easter.</p>
<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/first-things-resources/uploads/resource_5a9657d6d6b91.jpg" style="width:106px;height:131.547px" width="106" height="131.547">
<p rel="width: 100px; height: 149.5px;"><i>George Weigel </i><i>is
Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public
Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic
Studies.</i><i> </i><i> </i><i> </i></p>
<p rel="width: 100px; height: 149.5px;"><i>Photo by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Marx#/media/File:Marx_05-2009.jpg" target="_blank">Dieter Schmitt</a> via <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>. Image cropped. </i></p>
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