German Bishops have Prepared the Way for a De Facto Schism

German Bishops have Prepared the Way for a De Facto Schism

The German bishops are offering us a new kind of Christianity despite their claim that no change is being proposed other than in pastoral approach and language. A new pastoral approach would be commendable if applied as Pope Francis intends, to accompany the broken, wounded and lost into the field hospital that is the Church. However, this is not the intention of the German bishops. It is easy to disguise a substantial change to the meaning of marriage by calling it simply a pastoral innovation. The recent confidential day of studies organized by Cardinal Marx, Bishops Markus Büchel and Georges Pointier, heads of the German, Swiss and French bishops conferences respectively, at the Gregorian University in Rome on May 25, 2015, points in that direction as have other statements over the last few years.

It is unclear whether the other bishops from these countries knew of this meeting, titled “Reflections on a Biblical hermeneutics of Jesus’ words regarding divorce.” The initial impression that it was endorsed and attended by high-ranking curial officials has somewhat dissipated when it became known that only two had been present: the undersecretary of the Papal Council for Legal Texts, Markus Graulich, and the Jesuit Bernd Hagenkorn, leader of the German section of Radio Vatican. Furthermore, Italian commentators were wondering why the representatives of four major German newspapers were invited, but from Italy only a journalist from the anti-clerical La Repubblica. Cardinal Marx, it seems, is already preparing a way out for the Church in Germany, as the bishops had regarding Humanae Vitae, leaving it up to the “conscience of the individual” to decide as they then stated in their “Königsteiner Erklärung” in 1968. Their objective, it would seem, is to do what they have done for nearly 50 years: act independently of Rome’s authority and teaching without causing a schism. However, an unofficial schism (which already exists) has its advantages: remain popular by giving people what they want, while enjoying the prestige that comes from being representatives of a major world religion.

A new “theology of love” was developed by the problematic moral theologian, Eberhard Schockenhoff, and advocated by like-minded contemporaries in Germany and elsewhere whose ideas directly challenged those contained in Pope John Paul II’s “theology of the body.” Schockenhoff’s ideas can easily be interpreted in very destructive ways. If bodily acts are irrelevant in matters of love, as he suggests, then anything goes: fornication, adultery, homosexual acts, etc. Yet bodily acts carry great significance, as the spouse of an adulterer can attest. Neither the married couple nor the adulterous third party can take this faithless act lightly in the name of love. It is a grave wound inflicted on marriage, on the innocent spouse and on the souls of the adulterers. Yes, love can heal, but not by pretending that the offense did not matter. What the divorced and remarried do is therefore significant, and the Church needs to maintain its clarity on these issues while reaching out to them in new ways. Otherwise, the temptation is great for the couple to think that all is well. Allowing the divorced and remarried to receive communion and an official blessing will seem like an approval of their continued adultery—as long as the original marriage is considered valid.

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