Status: 09/24/2022 3:05 p.m
Representatives of the Catholic reform movement meet in Cologne for the “Church People’s Conference”. In the run-up to the upcoming autumn conference of the bishops’ conference, they are demanding more democracy and a say in their church.
36 Catholic associations and initiatives called for reforms in the Catholic Church in Cologne. The so-called Church People’s Conference should be an answer to the crisis in the Catholic Church, said Christian Weisner from the federal team of the church reform movement “We are Church” at the start of the event. “It’s about uncovering the core of Christianity again.”
The motto of the conference is “We are already making progress – for a synodal church of the future”. It takes place immediately before the autumn plenary assembly of the German Bishops’ Conference, which will meet in Fulda on September 26th.
meeting of the reform movement
In Cologne, reform groups such as “We are Church”, the “Maria 2.0” initiative, the #OutInChurch campaign and initiatives for those affected meet in advance. But also large organizations such as the Catholic German Women’s Association, the Catholic Women’s Association of Germany and the Association of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ) are involved.
Encouraging signal to the Bishops’ Conference
The “Church People’s Conference” wanted to send a “signal of encouragement and urgency” to the synodal path, said Weisner. With this church reform process, the Roman Catholic Church in Germany has been trying since 2019, among other things, to regain lost trust among the faithful after many cases of sexual abuse had become known within the organization over the years.
However, at the Synodal Assembly of Catholics in Frankfurt am Main at the beginning of September this year, the bishops failed to get the necessary majority for a reform of the Church’s sex teaching.
Who owns the church?
At the “Church People’s Conference,” Maria Mesrian from the “Maria 2.0” initiative now asked who owned the church: “We are experiencing new scandals every week because a small clerical elite is in power.” Meanwhile, the BDKJ federal chairman, Gregor Podschun, called for “a democratic church”.
The Cologne theologian Hans-Joachim Höhn pleaded for networking and synodality as the guiding principles of a church of tomorrow. “We need the courageous who lead the way, not those who are self-centered,” he demanded. The anxiety about the sole claim to power of the bishops is over.