Freedom for Our Bishops

How can they find a way out of the church crisis?

Every year, the Catholic Church in Germany loses more than half a million members, and the trend is rising. Only around 5% of Catholics still attend church services, and the trend is downwards. There are fewer and fewer priests and celibacy. The issue of unequal treatment of men and women, of consecrated and lay people, which contradicts human rights, and then there are the cases of abuse in the church and the slow pace at which they are being dealt with – all this and much more calls for reforms worldwide, but these have not been initiated for decades.

How can our bishops get out of this dilemma that the Church has been in since the beginning of the modern era? They have sworn an oath to uphold and even defend with their lives the truth of the faith that has been handed down and revealed to them. They cannot do otherwise, they have to contradict scientific theology, which reveals new possibilities of interpretation in almost all theological disciplines. For some of these reform proposals contradict the traditional ideas of faith and truth as both are taught and lived in the church.

A new way of thinking (metanoia) is needed here. And for this we need to dig a little deeper and more fundamentally and understand how our human cognition works. Ancient philosophers have already pursued this question and have come to astonishing conclusions, just like neuroscience. And the question of knowledge comes to a head with Socrates when he says: I know that I do not know.

In recent years, constructivism has provided a well-founded answer to the question of how we recognize something. Unfortunately, this approach has not yet arrived in theology or among many bishops. I cannot provide a scientific treatise on constructivism here, but I would like to use very simple examples to show how our constructivist cognition works.

If this is comprehensible, the bishops can think anew in all freedom and examine Scripture and tradition to see what can be removed as a human construct from the deposit of faith to be protected.

The Catholic Church is caught between reformers, conservatives and the Gospel – not only in Germany, but worldwide. Because reforms are obviously necessary, the Catholic Church in Germany has embarked on the rather controversial synodal path. My fear is that the synodal path will not bring about the necessary reforms because the bishops, who alone are authorized to make decisions, have no choice but to reject the necessary in-depth reforms due to their vow of obedience to the Pope and their self-commitment to preserve the one revealed faith. I do not wish to deny the good will of any of these consecrated persons and therefore appeal to all who are of good will to accompany me on this journey. I would like to show a logical and – in my opinion – comprehensible way in which the Church can be renewed dogmatically and in terms of canon law, without abandoning the Gospel of Jesus, but bringing it to new effectiveness. This would perhaps also lead to people once again receiving the nourishment from the Gospel that they are not receiving today.

The topics I want to touch on have been discussed many times, whether it is textual criticism of the Bible or questions of dogmatics or canon law. The new “truths” are well known and the relevant literature deals with individual questions much more comprehensively than I can here. The bishops are also aware of these arguments, but they have an obligation to uphold Scripture and tradition and therefore cannot get out of their “faith construct”. But there is a way out of this dilemma which, in my opinion, can be expedient. To do this, we must ask ourselves how we humans recognize something and make this “recognition” our “truth of faith”. I would like to start with a simple example, “original sin”, because it describes and defines fundamental things about man and his relationship with God. And then I would like to briefly introduce constructivism and its significance for our beliefs.

What can you expect on this journey? In short stages, I would like to look at the foundations of our faith, our understanding and our possibility of knowledge and always ask what they have to do with everyday practical life. Because everything that does not change our daily lives and actions has virtually no relevance and will become or is already meaningless.