The German Catholic bishops consider arms deliveries to Ukraine to be justified. Even if the churches have always been critical of the export of armaments and continue to do so, one should not ignore the specific situation, they write in a joint statement passed on Thursday. “We therefore consider arms deliveries to the Ukraine, which serve to ensure that the attacked country can exercise its right to self-defense, which is guaranteed under international law and also affirmed by the church’s peace ethics, to be fundamentally legitimate,” quoted the Bishops’ Conference chairman, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, from the statement. The Ukraine war was a focus of the spring plenary assembly of the bishops in the Franconian pilgrimage site of Vierzehnheiligen.
“In its teaching and in its actions, the church is committed to Jesus’ non-violence,” the bishops’ statement continues. “Even in the hour of distress, she must therefore resolutely resist the temptation to use unlimited force.” They consider the announcement by the federal government to invest an additional 100 billion euros in the Bundeswehr to be “fundamentally plausible”, but warn that other German contributions to peace in the world should not be pushed into the background.
The bishops call all attempts to give the war religious legitimation “completely unacceptable”. “The representatives of the churches must be careful not to allow themselves to be determined by national loyalties in such a way that God’s will for peace recedes into the background.” They call on Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril I to distance himself from the war. Only on Wednesday did Cyril I defend the war of aggression against Ukraine and accused the West of “diabolical lies” with the aim of weakening Russia.
When asked why Pope Francis is not traveling to Moscow, Bätzing said: “The pope, as I know him, would leave for Moscow immediately. For over 30 years, popes have wanted to travel to Moscow.” But this is not what the Russian Orthodox Church wanted. However, he called it a good sign that Francis had sent two of his most important collaborators, Cardinals Krajewski and Czerny, to Ukraine.
Criticism from Scandinavia on planned reforms in the church
A second focus of the bishops’ deliberations was church reforms, as they are currently being discussed in the so-called synodal path between clerics and lay people. According to Bätzing, one of the first demands of the synodal path is to be implemented before the end of this year: the basic regulations for church employment law are to be reformed so that, for example, the sexual orientation of a church employee is no longer a reason for dismissal. It is about introducing a “new hermeneutics into the basic order,” said Bätzing. Instead of looking at the individual way of life of an employee, it must be a question of whether they are willing to support the Catholic profile of the institution. “The trio used to be: Catholic carrier, Catholic employee, Catholic client. That can no longer be our main concern,” said Bätzing.
At the same time, however, the process must be carried out carefully – at the next Permanent Council in June, the working meeting of the bishops, a new basic order could be discussed in the first reading. “I cannot promise that we will be ready by then, but I think that changes are possible this year,” said the President of the Bishops’ Conference. On Wednesday, activists from the “Out in Church” campaign, which calls for an end to discrimination against queer people in the church, handed over six boxes with more than 117,000 signatures to Bätzing.
In Rome, however, people are skeptical about the German reforms and especially the synodal path – but not only there: On Wednesday evening the Catholic bishops of the Scandinavian countries sent an open letter to the German confreres. The Nordic bishops write that they are concerned about “the direction, the methodology and the content” of the reform debate. It must stop at those topics “that contain unchangeable parts of the teaching of the Church”. This also applies to questions about the way of life of the priests, the position of women and sexuality. True ecclesiastical reforms consist in “defending the Catholic doctrine founded on divine revelation and authentic tradition”. It’s not about “following the zeitgeist”.