(LifeSiteNews) — The German Bishops’ Conference has elected Bishop Heiner Wilmer as its new leader.
On Tuesday morning, Wilmer, the bishop of Hildesheim, was elected by the 56 bishops attending the spring plenary assembly as the successor of Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg.
Wilmer is known as a heterodox prelate and supporter of the heretical German Synodal Way. He regularly voted with the majority of bishops and the Synodal Assembly in favor of heretical documents that seek to change Church doctrine.
In late 2022 and early 2023, Wilmer was reported to be Pope Francis’s prime candidate for the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). However, multiple orthodox cardinals, including Cardinal Dean Giovanni Battista Re and former DDF head Cardinal Gerhard Müller, intervened and may have persuaded Francis not to appoint Wilmer. He instead choose his similarly heterodox Argentine countryman Victor Fernández.
Wilmer voted in favor of a document of the Synodal Way that calls for the “blessing” of homosexual unions. He also agreed with a document called “Magisterial Reassessment of Homosexuality” that called for a change in perennial Church doctrine. It reads: “Since homosexual orientation is part of the human being as created by God, it is not to be judged ethically differently from heterosexual orientation” and furthermore states, “Same-sex sexuality, including sexual acts, is therefore not a sin that separates us from God, and it is not to be judged as inherently evil.”
He also voted “yes” on a text that calls for the sacramental ordination of “female deacons.”
Wilmer was born on April 9, 1961, in Schapen (Emsland). In August 1980, he joined the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart (Dehonians) and took his perpetual vows in 1985. On May 31, 1987, Wilmer was ordained a priest in Freiburg. From 1987 to 1993, he studied in Rome and Freiburg. He taught at various schools in Germany and the United States and became headmaster of a school in Handrup, Germany. From 2007 to 2015, Wilmer was provincial superior of the German province of the Priests of the Sacred Heart in Bonn, and from 2015 to 2018, superior general of the Priests of the Sacred Heart in Rome.
On April 6, 2018, Heiner Wilmer was appointed the 71st Bishop of Hildesheim by Pope Francis, and on September 1, 2018, he was consecrated bishop and installed in office. In the German Bishops’ Conference, he has been chairman of the Commission for Social Issues since September 2021. From 2019 to 2024, he was chairman of the German Commission for Justice and Peace.
A few months after taking office, Wilmer said in early 2019: “I believe that the abuse of power is in the DNA of the Church. We can no longer dismiss this as peripheral, but must radically rethink our approach. So far, however, we lack any idea of what consequences this must have for theology.”
“In the future, we will only be able to sincerely profess our faith in the ‘holy Church’ if we also acknowledge that this Church is also a sinful Church,” he said at the time.
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