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| Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich, says he will not seek another term as head of the German Bishops' Conference (AFP Photo/Daniel ROLAND) |
Berlin (AFP) - German bishops began key talks on Monday to choose a new leader to steer the country's Catholic Church through a controversial reforms process and settle compensation demands from sexual abuse victims.
The
four-day episcopal gathering in the western city of Mainz comes at a time of
fierce debate about how to modernise Germany's Catholic Church, pitting
conservative bishops against more progressive ones.
Cardinal
Reinhard Marx, a driving force behind efforts to renew the under-fire Church,
last month unexpectedly announced he would not seek another six-year term as
head of the German Bishops' Conference, saying he was too old at 66.
The several
dozen bishops attending the annual general assembly will choose his successor
in a secret vote on Tuesday, although no clear frontrunner has emerged.
Besides
confronting calls to relax the rules on priestly celibacy and the roles of
women in the clergy, the new chairman will have to deal with the Church's
sexual abuse baggage.
Stephan
Ackermann, the bishop charged with addressing the historic child abuse scandal,
recently said he expected a decision "in the coming months" about
financial compensation for survivors.
In his
opening address in Mainz, Marx said he saw an opportunity for "a very
concrete proposal" to be put forward at the Bishops' Conference.
'Damage
done'
More than a
decade after the first abuse revelations emerged in Germany, victims are losing
patience.
"There's
no reason to wait any longer," the Eckiger Tisch victims' group said,
calling for a resolution this year.
The group
has proposed a one-off sum of around 300,000 euros ($330,000) per person, or
the creation of a fund paid for by the Church but run by independent overseers.
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Franz-Josef Overbeck,
Bishop of Essen, is seen as a potential successor to take
over from Reinhard
Marx (AFP Photo/FRIEDRICH STARK)
|
Several
high-ranking Church officials have rejected the proposals as too costly.
A study
commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that
1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors,
mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.
The
revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in Australia, Chile, France,
Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Marx to apologise on behalf of
the German Catholic Church.
The Church
currently pays victims an average sum of 5,000 euros "in recognition of
their suffering", as well as covering their therapy fees.
"It's
not about recognition. It's about compensation for the damage that's been done
to the lives of thousands of people," said Matthias Katsch from Eckiger
Tisch.
Celibacy,
women
At 23
million followers, the Catholic Church remains Germany's biggest religious
community. But its pews are increasingly empty on Sundays and it struggles to
recruit new priests.
Hoping to
renew itself and regain the public's trust, the German Church recently embarked
on two years of discussions tackling the institution's most controversial
themes, including the child abuse crisis.
The
project, known as the synodal path, will also debate whether to end celibacy
and allow priests to marry, and whether women should be ordained.
Traditionalists
within the Church have already voiced opposition to such changes, chief among
them the influential Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne.
Critics of
the reform push also say such decisions should come from the Vatican, and not
from Catholic leaders in Germany.
Pope
Francis last month disappointed progressives by rejecting a proposal to allow
married men to become priests in remote Amazon regions, a plan meant to counter
a shortage of clerics.
He also
stopped short of allowing women to be ordained as deacons in the region.
Representatives
from Catholic women's associations presented the bishops in Mainz on Monday
with a petition calling for more gender equality in the clergy, signed by
130,000 supporters.
"We're
not trying to divide the Church. We are the core of the Church," said
Mechthild Heil of the Catholic Women's Association of Germany (KFD).
One of the
candidates tipped as the next leader of Germany's Catholics, Bishop Franz-Josef
Overbeck of Essen, urged the 2,000-year-old Church in a recent sermon to choose
"a fresh start".
The
limitations placed on women in the Church are "increasingly
unacceptable" to many people, he warned, while "quite a few
priests" find celibacy "a heavy burden".
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