How did the German Bishops get it so wrong?

 Many Catholics around the globe were astonished at the events that occurred in Germany over the last few years regarding the Synodal Path. In it the German Bishops Conference seemed on the verge of voting into being a supervisory or governance body, called a Synodal Council, comprised of laity and clergy. If it was put into effect, this body would denature the office of bishop as the Catholic Church understands it as well as other canonical structures. Pope Francis, interviewed on the airplane on his trip back from Bahrain, said: “I say to German Catholics: Germany has a great Protestant Church, but I don’t want another one, because it won’t be as good.” On 17 February 2024 it was confirmed that the German Bishops would not proceed to a vote on the Council.  It appears that the threat to Church unity has passed. The question I pose in this blog is: "How did the German Bishops get it so wrong?" (Please note that I have not given extensive footnotes for this presentation. If there is appetite for further discussion or queries about it I am happy to provide them)

My response to this is first to go back into the history of how lay people are thought to engage in the Church in governance. As the Church developed in the 19th Century many lay organizations started to come into existence. As time went by the issues arose as to how lay leaders in these organizations related to Church hierarchy. The issue came to a head when Pope Pius XI wrote a letter to cardinal Bertrams about the relationship, which at that time had no canonical description. He stated that: "“the laity participate in some way in the apostolate of the hierarchy” (laici apostolatum hierarchicum quodammodo participent)." This was ultimately unhelpful. What did "in some way" actually mean? What does this mean in Canon Law?

Without going exhaustively into the matter, on which I have written a doctoral thesis, we can say that prior to Vatican II two German theologians posited that laity could participate in the exercise of the power of governance through the bestowal of a mandate from an ecclesiastical authority. This could be interpreted in a broad or a strict manner. The broad interpretation was given by Karl Rahner while the strict was proposed by Sebastian Tromp. The former saw laity as effectively forming a parallel hierarchy while the latter saw the laity as instruments in the hand of the hierarchy with little freedom to act. Another German theologian, Joseph Ratzinger, writing in 1996 at the time of the Instruction Ecclesiae de mysterio, summed up the two positions in this way: 

"This appears extremely important to avoid, on the one hand, an undervaluing of the ordained ministry and a falling into a “Protestantization” of the concept of ministry and of the Church herself, and, on the other, the risk of a “clericalization” of the laity ... This gives rise to a “functionalistic” conception of the ministry which sees the ministry of “pastor” as a function and not as an ontological sacramental reality."

Effectively, Tromp and Rahner, were maintaining the distinction between the power of orders and the power of jurisdiction. They believed this meant jurisdiction would be given to suitable laity independent of Holy Orders. What they had not paid attention to was that if such a distinction did in fact exist the doctrine from the Nota explicativa praevia in Lumen gentium would have taught them that the ontologico-sacramental takes precedence with the canonico-juridico aspect being a further norm required for Church order. In reality, the Council Fathers has abolished the distinction and created a new category which is the "power of governance." The canon which brings this about is canon 129 from the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

In brief, the German Bishops' Conference had continued in the mistaken theology of Karl Rahner even though it had been repudiated by the Council Fathers in Lumen Gentium, 33 and Apostolicam Actuositatem, 24. This was prefigured prior to Vatican II by both the theologian Yves Congar in his book Lay People in the Church (1957) and Pope Pius XII in his address to the Second World Congress of the Lay Apostolate (1957). The juridical implications for this theology which set up that which was decided at Vatican II was formulated by Bishop Narciso Jubany Arnau in 1960 when he wrote: 

"The idea of participation has, perhaps, given place to inexact conclusions. If to participate signifies entering in the ladder of the hierarchy as if it was divided in two, then the term is seriously incorrect [Rahner’s approach]. If he means that the laity are those constituted as some subordinate auxiliaries, directors, engineers and robots of the apostolate who are part of the Hierarchy, then we are found outside the field of the true apostolate, because it supposes a negation of their theological values, that truly bases the action and the activity of the Christian inside the Body of the Church [Tromp’s approach]. If to participate intends to indicate the identity of the same holy end, then our understanding is right although incomplete. It must signify something more: that the laity, bound to the hierarchy, take part in the authentic apostolate of the Church, and participate, according to his capacity, in the same mission that Jesus Christ showed to his apostles in the Commission for the salvation of the world. In other words, the idea of participation in the hierarchical apostolate states more clearly, on one hand, the intimacy of the participant with the participation, and on the other, the intimate dependence of the first with the second. But such intimacy and dependence do not signify by themselves - in virtue of the force of the word - nothing else: they do not necessarily carry with them the communication of an ontological element, totally new, that changes the theological and juridical nature of the lay apostolate. In any case, that part is taken by an extrinsic principle: the mandate. But then the participation signifies a more intimate linking of the activity of the laity with the Hierarchy, to constitute a unique apostolate, that of the Church, that supposes necessarily the concrete realization of diverse functions and two distinct levels: that of the hierarchy and that of the laity."

What, then, you might ask was the correct approach? Jubany Arnau goes on to write: 

"The idea of collaboration, used in the pontifical texts [Pius XII in 1951 and 1957], clearly indicates the personality of the layperson who works according to his condition in a unique apostolate: which is that of the hierarchy, which is that of the Church. And for the other part, excludes all the possible bad ideas of participation [Rahner and Tromp]. Certainly, although an action proper to the laity exists, the apostolate of the laity, in its intrinsic sense, always supposes in one form or another an active association of various causes, works ordered to the acquisition of common ends. The hierarchy works in its field, principally through the hierarchical functions, the laity in theirs, however, always united to the hierarchy. Everyone must meet each other, across a collaboration that must be perfect, in the supreme synthesis of the whole true apostolate, that is, ecclesiality."

Jubany Arnau was present on the Group of Bishops which was charged, along with a Group of Experts, with finalizing Canon 129 paragraph 2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law which legislates that: "In exercizio potestatis christefideles laici ad normam iuris cooperari possunt" (In the exercize of the same power (power of governance) the lay Christian faithful can cooperate according the norm of the law).

As a result, we see that the concept of the Synodal Council was from the outset a radical misunderstanding of what it means to be Church and the power of governance. The German Bishops had been following their own theology instead of listening attentively to Vatican II and the Papal Magisterium. Let that be a warning to all of us lest we make fools of ourselves as the German Bishops did! To paraphrase Oscar Wilde - Being to blame for one Protestant reformation may be regarded as a misfortune but to be blamed for two looks like carelessness!