From The Washington Examiner:
Five centuries after Martin Luther sparked a religious revolution in Europe, German Catholics are once again coming into conflict with the Vatican, this time over a planned meeting that would address key elements of the church’s moral teaching and discipline.
The German bishops are organizing a meeting, or Synodal Assembly, that would discuss issues including priestly celibacy, ordination, and marriage, raising concerns in the Vatican that they will try to change church teaching for German Catholics. The German bishops have been working closely with a lay group known as the Central Committee of German Catholics, which supports female ordination and opposes clerical celibacy. The Germans are pushing forward despite objections from Rome. Earlier this month, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, sent Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, an assessment of the German bishops’ proposed meeting, which declared it is “not ecclesiologically valid.” But Marx responded in a letter last week to Ouellet, telling him the German bishops will move forward on a “binding synodal path.”