The highest Swiss cleric expresses his displeasure with the reform process in Germany. The fact that he sees parallels to the “Third Reich” in this is not well received.
Cardinal Kurt Koch (right) is the country’s highest Catholic.
Georg Bätzing is the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK). And currently not good to speak to Kurt Koch. The Swiss Curia cardinal had made a “completely unacceptable lapse”, complained Bätzing on Thursday during the autumn plenary session of the DBK in Fulda. The accusation that the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has “disqualified himself theologically” is particularly strong. That reports the portal “katholisch.de”.
Whence the furor? In an interview with the Catholic daily newspaper “Die Tagespost”, Koch had criticized the reform process in the church in Germany. With this so-called synodal path, a new way of dealing with sensitive issues such as abuse of power, sexual morality, celibacy and the role of women should become possible. «It irritates me that new sources are accepted in addition to the sources of revelation from Scripture and tradition; and it frightens me that this is happening – again – in Germany,” explained Koch.
Shocked bishops
To underline his argument, the cardinal used a comparison from a sensitive area: This phenomenon had “already existed during the National Socialist dictatorship, when the so-called ‘German Christians’ saw God’s new revelation in blood and soil and in the rise of Hitler”. . According to their boss Bätzing, the German bishops reacted to this Nazi comparison “with horror”.
In particular, Koch criticizes the shift in emphasis in church teaching and practice, which the synodal assembly of the German church is trying to do. According to this, the Bible, tradition, the papal teaching authority and theology should no longer be the most important sources for Christians in the future. Rather, the “signs of the times” and the “sense of faith of the people of God” would be added.
Koch, who was once considered a reformer, emphasized in the “Tagespost” interview that the church must interpret the faith in a contemporary way and take the signs of the times seriously. But these are not new sources of revelation. «In the three steps of believing knowledge – seeing, judging and acting – the signs of the times belong to seeing and by no means to judging alongside the sources of revelation. I miss this necessary distinction in the orientation text of the ‹Synodal Way›.»
apology requested
Bätzing rejects the criticism and demands a public apology from Koch for his Nazi comparison. If this does not happen, he wants to submit an official complaint to the Pope. Koch speaks of pure fear that something is moving, said Bätzing. “But something will move.” Such a development cannot be prevented by statements such as those made in the “Tagespost” interview.
Koch had previously expressed his displeasure with the German special path, which Francis also calls a “wrong way”. Interview with the “NZZ am Sonntag”.. The pope and his cardinal are bothered by the fact that not all believers are involved in the process, but that it is mainly officials who shape the discussion. There is not enough space to discuss controversial points, says Koch. A meaningful discussion would be impossible if the speaking time was limited to one minute.