BERLIN (GERMANY)
The New York Times
November 29, 2019
By Liam Stack
With the German church’s global influence, a meeting of bishops and laypeople to take up hot-button topics has led to warnings of a new schism, originating in the home of the Protestant Reformation.
The Roman Catholic Church in Germany has a split identity. At home, attendance is falling and many Germans say they regard the church’s teaching on social issues as hopelessly out of touch.
But globally, the German church is one of the most powerful — and liberal — regions of the Catholic world, a player whose wealth and theological influence are now creating a challenge for the entire church.
On Dec. 1, the German church’s international influence will be on display when its bishops begin a two-year-long series of meetings with lay leaders that will allow debate on hot-button issues that in many other corners of the church would be off limits, such as whether to accept homosexuality, end clerical celibacy and ordain women as priests.
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