VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Walter Brandmüller – one of the two remaining dubia cardinals – has published a new statement in which he calls out the German bishops who approved several heterodox and heretical statements during their recent February 2022 Synodal Path meeting with organized lay people in Frankfurt, Germany. The Nordic Bishops Conference had just issued a similar criticism.
The German cardinal first presents the reforms that have also been approved by most of the German bishops. These are “the abolition of celibacy, as well as the admission of remarried divorcees to communion,” as well as the proposal “that practiced homosexuality is recognized as morally permissible.” In addition, the Synodal Path proposes that there are “now also no real differences between ordained bishops, priests, deacons, and ‘only’ baptized and confirmed,” the prelate explains.
In light of these heretical views, Cardinal Brandmüller concludes that “the Frankfurt Assembly overrules two thousand years of practice and a General Council. And, moreover, it demands that the Sacrament of Holy Orders be administered to women – something that has never been considered possible in two thousand years because, as John Paul II has stated with infallible judgment, the Church has no authority to administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women.” Such proposals, he goes on to say, “have aroused horror among ordinary Catholics.”
Cardinal Brandmüller then pronounces his challenge to the German bishops:
The frightening question suggests itself: Did the bishops who were involved in the decision-making process really not realize that they were openly contradicting the truths of the faith, which they had repeatedly sworn to faithfully preserve and proclaim? This question of ultimate existential seriousness must be asked in all severity – and answered by every bishop. The community of the faithful has a right to this!
The Synodal Path has aroused much opposition in Germany (here is a petition by German Catholics) and in the outside world, with the Polish bishops in February and the Nordic Bishops’ Conference only two days ago issuing strong warnings that the German bishops must adhere to the foundation of Catholic doctrine. The Nordic bishops, for example, wrote in their March 9 letter to the head of the German bishops, Georg Bätzing: “It has ever been the case that true reforms in the Church have set out from Catholic teaching founded on divine Revelation and authentic Tradition, to defend it, expound it, and translate it credibly into lived life — not from capitulation to the Zeitgeist. How fickle the Zeigeist is, is something we verify on a daily basis.” The Nordic Bishops’ Conference is the conference of the bishops of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland.
The German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller – a former head of the doctrinal congregation in Rome – warned in 2020 against the discussions and decisions of the Synodal Path and compared them with the Enabling Act of Hitler in 1933: “This is like the situation when the Weimar Constitution was repealed by the Enabling Act. A self-appointed assembly, which is not authorized by God nor by the people it is supposed to represent, rescinds the Constitution of the Church of Divine Right, which is based on the Word of God (in Scripture and Tradition).”
The Synodal Path process began in 2019, and even then Cardinal Brandmüller himself had warned against it, saying that it could lead to a “national church” without “nearly any ties to Rome” and that this would be “certainly be the surest path into the final decline.”
Please see here the English translation of Cardinal Brandmüller’s new statement:
Quo vadis, Germania?
By Walter Cardinal Brandmüller
So now the German “Synodal Path” has reached its first stage. In the elaborated texts – as to be expected – demands are raised which are in clear contradiction to the authentic Catholic faith, to the hierarchical-sacramental constitution and to the binding moral teaching of the Church. All this was “decided” with a large majority. The fact that not a few of these “yes” votes came from bishops indicates the seriousness of the situation – and raises fundamental questions.
Now it certainly came as no surprise to find among the “reforms” that were approved the abolition of celibacy, as well as the admission of remarried divorcees to communion, and so on. All this has been sweltering underground since the Würzburg Synod of 1971-1975, which was never confirmed by the Holy See. What is new, however, is that practiced homosexuality is recognized as morally permissible. That now no real difference between ordained bishops, priests, deacons and “only” baptized and confirmed should also be recognized, on the other hand, corresponds completely to the teachings of Martin Luther. The Second Vatican Council, however, teaches that the ministerial priesthood, that is, the hierarchical priesthood of the consecrated, differs from the universal priesthood of the baptized not merely in degree but in essence. Thus, the Frankfurt Assembly overrules two thousand years of practice and a General Council. And, moreover, it demands that the Sacrament of Holy Orders be administered to women – something that has never been considered possible in two thousand years because, as John Paul II has stated with infallible judgment, the Church has no authority to administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women.
These, then, are the spectacular demands of the Frankfurt companions, which have aroused as lively an enthusiasm in the circles of functional Catholicism as they have aroused horror among ordinary Catholics.
The frightening question suggests itself: Did the bishops who were involved in the decision-making process really not realize that they were openly contradicting the truths of the faith, which they had repeatedly sworn to faithfully preserve and proclaim? This question of ultimate existential seriousness must be asked in all severity – and answered by every bishop. The community of the faithful has a right to this!
***
In order to assess the seriousness and scope of this question, it is now necessary to trace the roots of the crisis that came to light with “Frankfurt”.
In this beginning, looking back at the end of the 19th century, we encounter the phenomenon of “Modernism”. What is really at stake here is the very fundamental question of the nature of religion: What actually is religion?
For a series of attempts to answer this question discussed around the turn of the 20th century, especially in France and England, Pius X came up with the collective term “Modernism”. This was a heterogeneous complex of ideas and approaches that were – and still are – incompatible with the Catholic faith in various ways.
One might think of attempts to illuminate the meaning of human existence, to cope with the experience of man’s finiteness, of the primordial experience of the depths of the person, of the unconscious or subconscious, etc. In addition, there is another constitutive element: that of evolution. In their own way, the person as well as society are subjects of evolution. In these cases, however, evolution takes place according to Hegel in the three-step process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But this means that today could be true what yesterday was false, and vice versa, in order to be questioned again in the next step – and so on. Thus this development, also of the religious consciousness, takes place on the always higher level of the respective time. This means, however, that contents of faith, practiced faith, or life are to be formulated on their momentary stage of development and are to be expressed in the practical life.
In any case it is about the “I”, which experiences itself, understands itself, articulates itself. Fixated on itself and circling around itself – enclosed in itself. A solitary monologue.
Now it would have been a most urgent task of theology to deal with these currents and the reaction of the ecclesiastical Magisterium to them – one thinks of the encyclical Pascendi and the decree Lamentabili of Pope Pius X – in a serious and calm way.
However, precisely this did not happen. This was a truly tragic consequence of the rapid political-cultural-economic development of the Western world, which soon perished in the primordial catastrophe of the First World War. The old powers were replaced by communist – fascist – dictatorships, whose clash in World War 2 led to the almost complete collapse of Europe.
The consequence of this was also “Inter arma silent musae” – i.e., where the weapons speak, the muses are silent – that theology in the first half of the 20th century turned less to the fundamental than to the momentarily current. Thus, however, there was no thorough and comprehensive examination of the complex phenomenon of Modernism. However, the problem continued to smolder underground.
The crisis finally erupted in the run-up to Vatican Council II, followed by serious intrusions into the faith and life of the Church. One need only refer to the nouvelle théologie to which Pius XII responded with his encyclical Humani generis. Soon after, the now graying generation of ’68 [the cultural revolution of the 1960s], which again set the tone in Frankfurt, attempted to change the course of events.
For example, the “clinical findings” for the patient “German Church”: a non-governmental organization – NGO – with humanitarian, cultural goals. An impressive artifact, limited to the here-and-now, circling around itself – superfluous.
***
The human being, however – so a comparison from mathematics – is neither a straight line without beginning and end, nor does he resemble the line segment, which is limited by both. He is rather like the ray which has a beginning but no end. Man does not exhaust himself in his life on earth. According to Judeo-Christian conviction, he is a creature and image of that Infinite Spirit Whose Will has called all that is into existence, but religion is the way how the creature man responds to it, recognizes his Creator, and meets Him. “Religion” is not a monologue, but essentially a dialogue.
With such considerations we move, certainly, still on the level of natural religion, which results from the realization of the finiteness, of the createdness of man and establishes an existential relationship of worship and devotion to the Creator. At the same time, there is still no mention of Christianity.
Are these self-evident facts – one wonders in astonishment, dismay – really lost to the Frankfurt companions?
Do the “synodalists” not realize that they are on a wrong track that is lost in nothingness?
In the end, the result of the enterprise “Synodal Path” is fatal: The Frankfurt papers are no longer only about false doctrine, heresy; in these texts hardly anything false is said about God. But God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are simply no longer mentioned. But this means “Atheism in Christianity” – the title of a book by Ernst Bloch from 1968 – he, Bloch, a “Frankfurter,” too.
***
In contrast to this we hold: Religion in the Jewish-Christian understanding is not the result of human self-experience or existential reflection, but the answer of the creature man to the self-communication, revelation of the Creator to His creature man. A call from beyond the created, which as such recognizably went out in the course of history to mankind, to the “chosen people” of Israel. In retrospect it becomes visible how in the religious tradition of this people from initially rather shadowy inklings an ever clearer, more sublime picture of the Creator of man and universe was recognized.
The Jewish-Christian author introduces his Epistle to the Hebrews with the words: “Many times and in many ways God once spoke to the fathers through the prophets,” but then he continues: “at the end of these days He has spoken to us through the Son.”
“The Son”, however, is the historical Jesus of Nazareth, whose last years of life, whose death on the cross, occurred in the brightest light of publicity, and are all the more extensively documented than those of his most prominent contemporaries. These testimonies are the writings of the New Testament.
Researchers agree that most of these were written and distributed during the lifetime of contemporaries of the reported events. Therefore, there is no reasonable doubt about their historical statements. In short, faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate “Son of the Living God,” is not based on ideas, myths, etc., but on verifiable historical facts. From the number and enthusiasm of the eye- and ear-witnesses of the events surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, the Risen Christ built on Peter, the rock, His Church, which the Apostle Paul was soon to portray as the Body of Christ, a living organism animated by the Spirit of God, the new way of the presence of the Risen Christ in this world.
And now the astonishing and dismaying statement: all this plays no role in “Frankfurt.” And there is no mention of death, judgment, and eternal life.
But what is understood there by religion, Christianity, the Catholic Church?
Indeed, “atheism in Christianity”. Is the “Church” then indeed only a socio-cultural – and among so many others – superfluous NGO?
“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2).
Translation by Dr. Maike Hickson
