(19 Nov 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palazzo Cesi, Vatican - 19 November 2022
1. Bishop Dr. Georg Bätzing, Matthias Knopp, Dr. Beate Gilles arriving at news conference
2. SOUNDBITE (German) Bishop Dr. Georg Bätzing:
"Of course, the topics must be discussed with all of the synodal path. I go home with a real relief because we have mentioned topics and no one can say that he did not hear about them or that he could not have expressed himself. But I also go home with a certain concern, because I cannot estimate what dynamics this dialogue with the synodal processes that has begun will now unfold in the future."
3. Bätzing, Knopp, Gilles during news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (German) Bishop Dr. Georg Bätzing:
"Yesterday morning at the Relatio to open the joint discussion, I once again made clear the pressure we are under in Germany, because the trigger in 2018 was the publication of the MHG study. And credibility and trust are largely lost in the leadership of the church, in the conduct of the bishops, in the clergy. The pressure is that the people of God have to give us back, so to speak, the authority that we have hierarchically.
++BLACK FRAMES++
5. SOUNDBITE (German) Bishop Dr. Georg Bätzing:
"Reform of the church, not in the church" is meant in the same way. That was an announcement that the impression arises that in the texts of the synodal path another church is described and not a church that is changing."
6. Bätzing during news conference
7. SOUNDBITE (German) Bishop Dr. Georg Bätzing:
"The question is, what is the role and position of women in the Catholic Church, also in terms of decisions and acceptance into the sacramental ministry. Then I would say that for me this would be an example where it is most urgent, because we feel... well, we have always known that women have carried and carry the Church. But that's where the impatience is the greatest, that many young women say, a church that rejects that can't be my church in the long run."
8. End of news conference
STORYLINE:
Germany’s Catholic bishops insisted Saturday that their reform process won’t lead to a schism and vowed to continue it after tense meetings with Vatican officials who want a moratorium on proposals to ordain women, bless same-sex unions and rethink church teaching on sexuality.
The head of the German bishops' Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said the German church would not make decisions that were the Vatican's to make.
He said outsiders who fuel fears of the reform process leading to a separation from Rome were ignorant of what actually was getting debated.
“We are Catholic,” Baetzing said at a news conference after a week of meetings with Vatican officials.
“But we want to be Catholic in a different way.”
The church hierarchy in Germany and the country’s influential lay Catholic group launched the process in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandals.
A 2018 report found that thousands of crimes were systematically covered up by German church leaders and that structural problems in the way power was exercised “favoured sexual abuse of minors or made preventing it more difficult.”
Preliminary assemblies of the reform process, known as the Synodal Path, have sought to address how power and authority are exercised in the church.
During these meetings, lay representatives and German bishops have approved calls to allow blessings for same-sex couples, married priests and the ordination of women as deacons, though the proposals must be further debated and ultimately approved for them to be enacted.
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