The Vatican expressed concerns to the German Bishops’ Conference about a move by the “Synodal Way” in Germany to establish a so-called “permanent Synodal Council”. 

In a letter, signed by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, and the prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Vatican stated that a construct such as the “permanent Synodal Council” would undermine the authority of the bishops and the work of the rightful German episcopal conference, even contradicting canon law. 

 In the summer of 2019, a few months before the Synodal Way in Germany even began, the Pope had already set out in his famous “LETTER TO THE PILGRIM PEOPLE OF GOD IN GERMANY” to express what he envisaged by synodality. Since then, the Pope has had to intervene again and again, correcting and admonishing. In yesterday’s letter, therefore, there is a decisive sentence. I quote: “The Holy Father has approved this letter informa specifica and has ordered its transmission”. It means that the Pope takes it into his own hands. It is not the letter of any curial officials, but the mandate and approval come from Pope Francis himself.  

Two days later, on January 25, the Associated Press published a new interview with Pope Francis, in which he once again criticized the “Synodal Way” in Germany. This process is neither “helpful” nor “serious”, said the Holy Father and added: “Here the danger is that something very, very ideological trickles in. When ideology gets involved in church processes, the Holy Spirit goes home, because ideology overcomes the Holy Spirit”.