From OSV News:
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna warned of schism as German bishops want to keep to their reform course despite the latest letter from Rome, which halted the vote on the statutes of a Synodal Committee.
The move has proceed “in dialogue with Rome,” the president of the German bishops’ conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, said in Augsburg Feb. 19. He called the coordination of fundamental church reforms with the Vatican “a matter of course.”
That is why, he said, “out of respect for those responsible in Rome,” he had removed the controversial voting from the agenda of the bishops’ meeting in Augsburg, at which the establishment of a Synodal Committee for Germany was to be decided. “We do not want to and cannot ignore the Roman objection. Now we have to talk,” said Bätzing.
The German bishops were “eagerly” awaiting concrete talks with Vatican officials, he said. Three further meetings have currently been “announced” although the bishop stressed it may take up to six months for the Vatican to set the concrete date.
Bätzing emphasized that, in his view, the Synodal Path in Germany and the worldwide Synod on Synodality were heading in the same direction.
In the letter from the Vatican that surfaced over the weekend, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Robert Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, called on the German bishops to suspend a planned vote on the creation of a mixed decision-making body for the Catholic Church in Germany because it would violate canon law. The cardinals said that their letter was “brought to the attention of Pope Francis and approved by him.”
Bätzing emphasized that he was willing and able to refute the Vatican’s concerns expressed in the letter, and said that a joint body of bishops and laity would not weaken the authority of the bishops, but rather strengthen it.
Lay German Catholics involved in the Synodal Path called on the bishops to defy Rome and stick to the reform course.
