COLOGNE (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki has said that he will not participate in the last synodal assembly of the heretical German “Synodal Way.”
In an interview with Domradio published on Tuesday, the archbishop of Cologne was asked why he decided not to attend the sixth synodal assembly of the Synodal Way taking place in Stuttgart at the end of January.
“For me, the Synodal Way is over. It was originally agreed that there would be five meetings, and I took part in all of them,” he said. “In my opinion, this body also does not have the mandate to evaluate what an individual local bishop or diocese has or has not implemented from the decisions of the Synodal Way.”
The sixth synodal assembly will take place three years after the conclusion of the first five assemblies and is meant as an opportunity to evaluate the “reform process.”
The German Synodal Way is infamous for proposing heretical changes to immutable Catholic teaching. The heterodox “reform” project was launched by the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics, a laity organization, in December 2019.
By 2023, an overwhelming majority of the members of the Synodal Way, including more than two-thirds of the German bishops, voted in favor of heretical documents calling for “women deacons,” “blessings” of homosexual relationships, changing Church teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts, and even “transgender” priests in a text replete with gender ideology.
Cardinal Woelki added that “other important issues were not addressed during the Synodal Path either, such as the question of evangelization, which Pope Francis emphasized in his 2019 letter ‘to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany.’ I see this as a major shortcoming of these five plenary assemblies.”
The cardinal, who was part of the minority of bishops who opposed the heretical documents of the Synodal Way, did not call out his brother bishops directly for their errors but instead said, “All I can say is that I am accountable for my ordination vows.”
“I promised to protect the faith of the Church and to walk the path in my diocese in unity with the Pope. I would like to continue to do so in the future.”
“I have the impression that, at a certain point, the Synodal Path in Germany became primarily about implementing certain church policy positions,” the archbishop of Cologne stated.
“My great concern is that there is currently a creeping attempt in Germany to implement a new ecclesiology and a new anthropology that are no longer in harmony with the faith and teaching of the universal Church,” he concluded.
Cardinal Woelki also commented on the plan of the majority of the heterodox German bishops, together with the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), to give the laity greater executive power in the Church through the establishment of a permanent Synodal Council.
“As Catholics, we live in a hierarchical, sacramental Church,” he stressed. “This is not simply a question of organization, but a question of the very nature of the Church. And this is the basis on which we must walk a common Synodal Path.”
“In this Church, the bishop has ultimate decision-making authority for his diocese, which is conferred on him by Christ himself. In this respect, I find it difficult to accept the idea of being part of a body in which 27 diocesan bishops, 27 members of the ZdK, and another 27 members who have yet to be elected deliberate and decide together. And that is ultimately what it is all about, even if attempts are made to describe it in other terms.”
According to an Italian journalist and Vatican insider, Nico Spuntoni, the Holy See is concerned that a Synodal Council that gives authority reserved for bishops to the laity could lead to a schism of large parts of the German Church.
READ: Schism fears arise as Catholic Church in Germany aims to put laity on ‘same level’ as bishops