We Are Church calls for Voting in Prague

The Synodal Process called by Pope Francis has shown how important it is to listen and dialogue with all.

But progress will only be made by taking actions on the priority issues. Therefore it is important for the Prague meeting to vote on the many issues which have been discussed, voting on each of them to determine the priority of each resolution. Together with the priorities from the other continental meetings there can then be meaning full Synods in October 2023 and October 2024.

We have seen how Synodality has blossomed with clerics and laity in dialogue around the world. The next steps must be implementation of reforms. Some reforms will blossom and thrive. Others will wither and be discarded. But we must take decisions and move forward, rather than keep going around in circles.

We Are Church also calls for EQUALITY at the Synod meetings with equal numbers of voices for laity and clergy.

EQUALITY for Women
EQUALITY for Laity
EQUALITY for LGBTQ+
EQUALITY for Married
EQUALITY for All

Colm Holmes
Chair, We Are Church International

Catholic Reform Groups to the European Synodal Assembly in Prague 5-12 February 2023

Press release Prague / Dublin / Innsbruck / Munich 3 February 2023

English / Italiano / François / Deutsch / Polska / Česky

Catholic reform groups in Europe welcome the global synodal process launched by Pope Francis, the first and arguably most difficult continental phase of which for Europe will take place in Prague next week, 5-12 February 2023. "It is an extraordinarily ambitious participation and reform process, but one that is indispensable in view of the worldwide church crisis," explains Colm Holmes from Ireland, Chair of We Are Church International. Sexual and spiritual violence, cover-ups and abuse of power, discrimination against women that contradicts the message of Jesus and human rights, as well as the consequences of a misguided sexual morality are gradually becoming apparent in more and more countries. The worldwide synodal process is a test for a new togetherness in the church.

The given guiding theme "Community, Participation, Mission" and the question of the church's self-understanding – which has preoccupied the church since the Second Vatican Council – are important. However, "In the forthcoming continental synodal assemblies, all topics – including the controversial ones which are addressed in the working document 'Enlarge the Space of Your Tent' – must be able to come up for discussion, so that the principle of synodality does not become a farce," demands Dr Martha Heizer of We Are Church Austria. This is not an instrumentalisation of the synod. On the contrary, synodality – i.e. the mutual exchange and being on the way together – offers the chance of spiritual renewal, which, however, must also be followed by concrete resolutions to be decided by all participants. According to the long-standing Christian principle: "What concerns all should be decided by all."

Hopeful working document commits

Unlike the Synodal Way in Germany, the worldwide synodal process did not start from the abuse of sexual and spiritual violence. But it is remarkable, says Christian Weisner of We are Church Germany, that across the most diverse regions of the world exactly the same areas of reform have emerged that are on the agenda in Germany, as the working document "Enlarge the Space of Your Tent" for the continental assembly shows quite clearly. The 45-page working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) had been compiled on behalf of the Vatican on the basis of feedback from the 112 bishops' conferences and other feedback.

Together with other European reform groups, We Are Church International appeals to the delegates of the 39 European Bishops' Conferences, who are participating in the Assembly partly in person and partly online, to become aware of the unique opportunity as well as the great responsibility for the future of the Church and Christianity. The reform groups strongly support the reformers at the Assembly in Prague. But the reform groups also demand that lay people and clergy have equal voting rights at these assemblies and at the World Synod in Rome – otherwise the whole synodal process will have been in vain!

Expectations of the Church People for the Prague Meeting

In a joint online press conference on Monday, 30 January 2023, representatives of various European reform groups had already formulated the expectations of the Church people for the Prague meeting.

Ludovica Eugenio, contact person of #ItalyChurchToo, the coordination of associations against abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy, sees reforms in the Church as essential, in view of the sexual and spiritual abuse that is still being covered up. Abuses in the Catholic Church are not isolated cases: they have systemic and structural causes.

"We need truth that goes beyond personal responsibility, justice for those affected and for the perpetrators, prevention and, finally, long-term reforms and measures: a rethinking of pastoral life, a reform of the distribution of power, the role of women, the theology of ordained ministry, formation in seminaries and psycho-affective education."

Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri, Director of Research at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, sees the urgent need for a constitution of the universal Catholic Church incorporating the “basic equality” and “fundamental human rights” of all the baptised, as affirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). "We must work together to ensure that future recommendations of the Synod lead to concrete changes in Canon Law to prevent the current clerical system from continuing by inertia."

Sr Philippa Rath OSB, German Benedictine nun and delegate of the religious orders sees in the Synodal Way in Germany the unconditional will to eliminate the systemic causes of violence and abuse - as named in the various abuse studies. But spiritual renewal is also an integral part of the Synodal Way. Its concerns - as the working document for the continental phase "Enlarge the Space of YourTent " impressively demonstrates - are on the agenda in all parts of the universal Church. "We are convinced with Pope Francis that there is no turning back on the path towards a synodal Church.

Miroslav Matavka of Rainbow Christians in Slovakia, who is active in various European LGBT Christian networks, advocates for the visible and valued participation of LGBT+ Catholics in the Synod and in the life of the Church. However, especially in Eastern Europe, LGBT+ Catholics still face scientifically disproven prejudices. Both in secular society and in the Church, efforts are being made to create a conflict between the West and the East. The current synodal Process of the Catholic Church is therefore an important instrument for building a Church that will be a true home for all the baptised and confirmed.

Sophie Rudge from England, co-chair of Andante, said the official working document for the continental phase shows very clearly how great the frustration of committed women on all continents is that women are still considered second-class in the Roman Catholic Church and are treated as such. "The many vocations exercised by women in the Church need to be made visible and appreciated. Allowing women to enter the diaconate, enabling women to enter the preaching ministry and opening up leadership positions to women would bring about a fundamental change in the Church. The Synod Assembly's response to the women's insights will be a crucial test for practised synodality." Andante, the European Alliance of Catholic Women's Organisations, and the global network of Catholic women's organisations Catholic Women's Council (CWC) had gathered women's voices worldwide.

(Press) contacts in Prague:

Representatives of We Are Church International and other reform groups will be in Prague from 5-12 February 2023 to accompany the Assembly:

Dr Martha Heizer (We are Church Austria)
(Deutsch, English) E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Mobile: +43 650 4168500

Colm Holmes (We are Church International, Ireland)
(English, Deutsch, François) E-Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Mobile: +353 8660 63636

Miroslav Maťavka (SIGNUM, EF and GNRC, Slovakia)
(Slovenské, Česky, German, English) E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Mobile: +421 903 828240

Marlies Prinz (We are Church Austria)
(Deutsch, English) E-Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Mobile: +43 650 5301090

Dr Martin Schockenhoff (We are Church Germany)
(Deutsch, English) E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Mobile: +49 173 3248913

Christian Weisner (We are Church Germany)
(Deutsch, English) E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , Mobile: +49 172 518 4082

Monday, 30 January 2023 at 11:00 CET

A few days before the start of the European Continental Assembly of the Synod, which will take place in Prague from 5 to 12 February 2023, we invite you to an international online press conference with ZOOM. Doing this we would like to encourage the reform forces in this unique meeting.

Speakers and their topics

Colm Holmes (Chair We are Church International, Ireland): EQUALITY at Synod

Ludovica Eugenio (#italychurchtoo, Italy): Sexual and spiritual abuse and the need for reform

Dr Luca Badini Confalonieri (Wijngards Institute, England): A Constitution for the RC Church

Sr Philippa Rath OSB (delegate at Synodal Path in Germany): The German approach for Reform

Miroslav Maťavka (SIGNUM, EF and GNRC, Slovakia): Equality for LGBTIQ+

Sophie Rudge (Co-president andante-europa.net, England): CWC/Andante – Equality for Women

Christian Weisner (We are Church Germany): Moderator

Languages

The speakers will present their statements in their mother tongue, but the statements will be posted during the press conference at least in English, Italian, German, Polish, Czech.

Volunteer translators will help to translate your questions and the answers of the speakers.

Registration

Please register by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with name, name of your media, mobile phone, language ability and whether you will be present in Prague in February 2023. You will receive the ZOOM link for the online press conference by Monday morning, 30 January 2023.

Presence in Prague

During the Continental Assembly of the Synod in Prague many representatives of Catholic Reform Groups will be present in Prague and also available for interviews.

You will find up to date information on the website: www.wir-sind-kirche.de/prag2023

We Are Church calls for Equal Numbers of Voices for Laity and Clergy at Synod meetings

The Synodal Process called by Pope Francis has shown how important it is to listen and dialogue with all.

At the Continental meetings next month teams of Laity and Clerics will represent each country. They are building on the meetings held in parishes, dioceses and countries. This process must not now be stopped by reverting back to a Synod of Bishops with no equal lay representation! We Are Church calls for EQUALITY at the Synod meetings with equal numbers of voices for laity and clergy.

EQUALITY for Women
EQUALITY for Laity
EQUALITY for LGBTQ+
EQUALITY for Married

Colm Holmes
Chair, We Are Church International
E This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
M +353 86 606 3636

Noi Siamo Chiesa offer this reflection on Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's death from a church reform perspective.  Offered here is a translation into English.   Original Italian may be found here.

Ratzinger's death has aroused media and popular reactions, in part unforeseen and such as to affect the current structures of the Church. Evidently he was still a point of reference, of consensus and dissent, beyond the easy and simple affirmation that there is only one Pope. Probably also in the future he will remain as a point of reference for various memberships. It is therefore worthwhile, after this outburst of attention, to express oneself clearly and to say explicit words about a pontificate that "Noi Siamo Chiesa" has always followed critically.

Christianity and secularization

Ratzinger's pontificate was in continuity with the ecclesial winter of the pontificate of Pope Wojtyla (of which Ratzinger was number two). The parameter of judgment is for us, even if not shared by all, the Second Vatican Council. On December 2005, the new pope, speaking to the Curia, criticized those who interpreted the Council as a real rupture in the history of the Church compared to those who saw it only as continuity. The inspiration behind this position is the same of Cardinal Ratzinger in his long years as prefect of the former S.Uffizio (now Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). The return to Christianity was the objective to be pursued, thinking of tradition in its most static terms in line with the Council of Trento and not with the free creativity of the Church of the first centuries. Faced with the changes in society and politics, "fear more than joy, more control than freedom" (Leonardo Boff ) prevailed. Universal principles were to be the basis for countering secularization, attention to the “signs of the times” (“segni dei tempi”) became secondary (as transpires from his will). One could speak of deafness to history. Benedict tried to "propose to his contemporaries a modernized neo-Christianity pivoting on the universal natural law guaranteed by the Church such as to establish fundamental rights for public regulations as the foundation of human civilization" (Daniele Menozzi ). The most evident reaction to this way of living the Message was a very strong criticism of secularization which sought other parameters for approaching reality "starting from the faculty for each individual to self-determine the forms of his own existence both in his social life and in the more profound anthropological structures (body, birth, death, sexual identity, etc. (D. Menozzi )". From his testament there appears a lively criticism of many new and different biblical exegeses (his commentary on the four Gospels is lacking it concerns the comparison with the most recent and best exegeses, observed Cardinal Martini!). Ratzinger seems to snub them but the biblical sciences have contributed considerably to deepening and purifying the faith by allowing the biblical texts to be interpreted in an adult way (Vito Mancuso). Ratzinger's rigid scheme of understanding reality has had many consequences, for example the one on the opportunity to heal the fracture with the Lefebvrians against whom opportunities for return were offered, which failed. 1968 was not understood by Ratzinger who simplistically blamed the pedophilia of the clergy on the sexual revolution of that period.

Eurocentrism

But the narrow limit of his analyzes can be easily seen in one of the central axes of his pastoral approach. It is that of Eurocentrism. His analyzes on secularization are the consequence of Ratzinger being wholly internal to this continent (for better or for worse), the most involved in secularization after centuries of a hegemonic role of ecclesial structures, right up to the Enlightenment. His studies, his professorships, his disciples are realities that have conditioned his pastoral journey. He pledged to Pope Wojtyla that a reference to the "Christian roots" of Europe be included in the European Constitution and in Auschwitz in 2006 he said that a "criminal group forced our people "to be used and abused" as an instrument of their of destruction and domination”; but this is an interpretation of history that does not take into account the almost generalized support that Nazism had from the population.

Liberation theology

Ratzinger, without the charisma of Pope Wojtyla, made choices that the more "conciliar" positions present in the Church openly criticized. With the Dominus Jesus of 2000, inspired by him, the centrality of the "Catholic" faith was affirmed and the placement of other Christians on the level of "ecclesial communities separated from the true one Church", second-class Christians; he helped to promote the review Communio in direct controversy with Concilium (expression of the main theologians of the conciliar area). In Regensburg in 2006 he expressed an unacceptable judgment on violent Islam; especially towards the Theology of Liberation he manifested a severe obstinacy without evangelical foundation. Gustavo Gutierrez , Leonardo Boff , Jon Sobrino , Jacques Dupuis , Edward Schillebeeck and many others - the main theologians of the post- conciliar period - were removed from teaching and marginalized. A climate of repression and self-censorship was established where theological research was carried out. In April 2008, on his birthday, he was received by Bush with a big party on the lawn of the White House with American-style songs and fanfares. In his speech to the UN general assembly he did not mention the problem of the North/South relationship or the questions of rearmament and peace. From then on, he was judged by many to be the pope of the West and was considered extraneous to and contrary to the new experiences and researches elaborated by the theology of the South.

Non-negotiable values

On some ethical issues related to the life of the individual and the family (gender, euthanasia, homosexuals, civil unions…) the position was more than firm, the same on abortion. It is an ethic of rigidity and of "non-negotiable values" which does not accept to reckon with the experience of the person, his sufferings, the specific situations of complex human realities, which cannot be judged by canon law but with great discernment and with much mercy. He was fully co-responsible for protecting the clergy from pedophilia during the many years of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, finally freeing himself in recent times from the most scandalous cover-ups (such as that of Marcial Maciel Degollado of the Legionaries of Christ) and receiving victims, thus trying to contradict a system that is widespread almost everywhere. He was then personally accused of having protected four priests when he was Archbishop of Monaco (issue still open).

The scandals

The scandals in the management of resources, the infidelity of some collaborators and a very badly organized system have compromised the pontificate. Many in the Christian population have understood that Benedict has been deceived but have also resented the atrocities that may be bearable in civil society and in politics but surprising in a structure with evangelical inspiration. Furthermore, the awareness spread that the pope, despite having the powers in such authoritarian and strong structure as the Vatican, was not personally capable of controlling and governing. In the end, a general fragility of the system was aggravated.

In Italy

The Card. Bertone , an arrogant and incapable clergyman, was named Secretary of State, on the basis of a completely questionable personal and friendship evaluation , despite his extraneousness to the great questions the Church deals with throughout the world. Benedict above all with this choice, which he defended against all logic and even after some obvious missteps, demonstrated his inability to govern. The management of the Italian Conference of Bishops (CEI) of Card.Ruini and then of Card. Bagnasco was supported, in substantial continuity between them, as managers of the ordinary administration and of the moderate status quo in Italian politics. The Welby and Englaro cases were the public manifestation of an ethical intransigentism which aroused bitterness and rejection in vast areas of the Catholic world as well. Finally, another non-ecclesial step was to highlight Scola's candidacy for his succession by transferring him from bishop of Venice to bishop of Milan. Scola's ecclesial history (as a student dismissed from the Venegono, seminary of diocesis of Milan ) was forgotten. After the “white smoke” at the Conclave, the online information of the CEI congratulated Scola as the new pope with great emphasis. These are serious facts, far from any ecclesial and evangelical logic.

The encyclicals

The analysis of his other pastoral choices can be done calmly, starting from his three encyclicals (“ Deus caritas est”, “ Spe salvi” and “Caritas in veritate ” ). Interesting contents will be found there, always coherent with Ratzinger's basic theological and pastoral point of view. On the “Noi Siamo Chiesa” website there are analyzes and critical observations. Positive interventions can be found in his action, such as the Letter to Chinese Catholics of 2007 which opened up a possible dialogue with the regime.

The renunciation

His renunciation was the most just decision of his pontificate. According to both ecclesial and human logic, it was founded on common sense, due to Ratzinger's physical conditions and his manifest incapacity to manage the situation. Not surprisingly, it aroused great disappointment in the whole fundamentalist area of the Church. It has contributed to desacralizing the figure of the papacy. A historical fact for the history of the Church. Even Bergoglio will probably follow the same line. And, thinking in retrospect, if Ratzinger hadn't reasoned correctly to keep faith with principles (as did Pope Wojtyla, who had others govern in recent times) we would have had an incapable pope for years, a serious power vacuum. And now no one talks about how to ascertain the possible very delicate case of permanent physical or psychic impediment of a pope. Who ascertains this, offering the whole Christian and secular world the guarantee that there will be no incorrect pressures? Why is silence on this issue?.

Ten years of pope emeritus

Ratzinger did not complete his historic decision, he did not accept what many hoped for, he did not really leave the scene: retreat to some monastery in Bavaria, letting go of forms, the title of pope emeritus, an ad hoc monastery, the habit , residence in the Vatican (some have said to protect themselves with extraterritoriality from possible lawsuits brought by the USA and then by Bavaria). Remaining in the Vatican, receiving visitors and, sometimes, writing, he has exercised a role of interdiction on the one hand against the fundamentalist wing who wanted (and wants now) to use him against change (he was a bulwark towards the extreme right, we could say), on the other hand he was ready to intervene in the case of positions completely outside of orthodoxy. For example, there are many who blame his indirect intervention for stopping the go-ahead for the consecration to presbiteral responsibility of married men after the conciliar Catholics of Latin America for three years had prepared everything so that a positive decision could be reached. In the Querida Amazonia Bergoglio was "forced" to say no. The situation is now for the worse: Ratzinger's secretary Mons Gänswein , with funerals still to be celebrated, has already given out, without any discretion or style, information on the disagreements of the pope emeritus with regards to some decisions of Pope Francis. An open confrontation is now expected.

The funeral

The funeral was celebrated in more sober forms than those foreseen by the canon law for the death of a pope. Attendance was much lower than that at the death of Pope Wojtyla. The intervention of the media was of great resonance. We hope that now this pope will be left in peace, that Pope Francis will not also have the problem of responding to those who, using their predecessor, refer to the past, want to forget the Council and are unable or unwilling to read the signs of the times (“segni dei tempi”). You don't start a campaign on “santo subito”. The canonization of popes is an error, as Cardinal Martini said.

NOI SIAMO CHIESA

Rome, 10 January 2023