Splits
between reformist lay Catholics and bishops loyal to the Vatican have
resurfaced at a convention in Mannheim, Germany. Organizers say there are
"great discrepancies" between papal doctrine and everyday realities.
The Central
Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) has demanded the Vatican make
"improvements" by opening the church's leadership to women and ending
the "exclusion" felt by divorcees and couples in mixed-faith
marriages during Mass.
The
so-called Mannheim Appeal issued by the committee, which has organized the
annual five-day festival-like gathering in the southern Rhine river city, says
reforms within the church of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide are
"overdue."
 |
| Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck rules out female priesthood |
The call
was promptly rejected by Ruhr District bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, who told
the Rheinische Post newspaper on Thursday that "the Church has no
authorization to allow women into the priesthood." Overbeck added that he
saw "little point" in making the issue public again.
Organizers
expect at least 33,000 participants daily at the five-day lay convention, which
on Thursday began its full program of discussions and workshops. Debate and
prayer services will be spread across 76 locations within Mannheim, under the
organizers' motto "dare a new beginning."
Guestlist
includes parliamentarians
Guests
invited on Thursday include the leader of conservative Bundestag
parliamentarians Volker Kauder and opposition Social Democrat party leader
Sigmar Gabriel as well as Auma Obama, the Kenya-born sociologist and German
language scholar, and half-sister of US President Barack Obama.
At an
open-air church service early Thursday, which is an Ascension Day public
holiday in Germany, the chairman of the German bishops' conference, Archbishop
Robert Zollitsch, condemned adherence to the ideal of economic growth.
 |
| Growth no longer panacae, says Archbishop Robert Zollitsch |
Zollitsch
said the repeated call for economic growth was not the correct recipe against
the injustices of the world.
"We sense
it. Our lifestyle is not sustainable. It can't go on like this," he said.
"Must it always be the best mobile phone or the newest fashion?"
Central ZdK
committee president, Alois Glück, said pressing issues in society, the secular
state, and the church had converged and required "urgent action."
Industrial
society had reached "a phase of important cross-roads decisions" with
long-term consequences, Glück said.
"To
not decide also generates its own dynamic."
Scandal
resolution sluggish, say critics
A spokesman
for one of several dissenting Catholic lay movements, Christian Weisner of
"We are Church" said the church's sexual abuse scandals worldwide in
recent years had prompted German bishops to launch a public discussion process
a year ago, "but the bishops are still not really moving it forward."
"That
burdens the Catholic convention," said Weisner.
Another
spokesman, Bernd Göhrig for the "Church from below" movement, accused
bishops of "failing to grasp the seriousness" of the scandal and its
roots, which Göhrig said, lay within church teachings on sexual morality.
 |
| Prominent theological critic, Friedhelm Hengsbach |
Göhrig also
accused organizers of overlooking Pope Benedict XVI's recent bids to
reintegrate strict traditionalists of the Society of Catholic Saint Pius X.
They opposed liberal reforms of the 1960s; broke with Rome in the 1980s; and
include the controversial British bishop Richard Williamson.
Leading
Frankfurt Jesuit theologian, Professor Friedhelm Hengsbach, accused ZdK
convention organizers of behaving submissively in search of harmony. The
convention was once a liberation movement, launched during Europe's
revolutionary year of 1848, but it was now "totally dominated" by the
bishops, Hengsbach asserted.
ipj/ai (epd, kna,
dpa, AP, AFP)
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“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”
“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?
“…. Each project is underway and that will result in a sudden wealth of information reaching you. Events are such that the facts can no longer be kept hidden, and with that there will be an explosion of people coming forward to tell what they know. It may take longer where the Vatican is concerned, as it is akin to a secret society that has kept its dark secrets hidden well away. However, nothing will remain concealed for too long, as you are entitled to know the truth and the extent to which you have been deceived….”
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