German Reform Lobby Decries Rome’s Silence on Synod Plans
As the Joint Conference marks its 100th meeting, lay activists warn of stalled dialogue and press for equality claims Rome has not approved.
On Friday, November 6, 2026, the German Catholic initiative Wir sind Kirche (We Are Church), active in some 30 countries, held its federal assembly in Bonn and denounced what it called a stalling of reform dialogue in the German Church, pointing to the absence of an official Roman reply on key German proposals.
Claudia Lücking-Michel, a former vice-president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), said Rome has given no official response regarding recognition of the statutes of the planned Synodal Conference meant to carry forward the Synodal Way. She warned that she did not want the view of those who dismissed the process as mere “occupational therapy for the laity” to be confirmed. The first session of the Synodal Conference, originally planned for November 2026, had to be postponed for lack of Vatican approval.
Joint Conference marks 50 years
The same day in Bonn, the Joint Conference—a parity body of ten bishops and ten ZdK representatives—held its 100th meeting. Its president, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, and ZdK president Irme Stetter-Karp praised five decades of the body, in place since 1976 as a fruit of the Würzburg Synod (1971–1975). Both expressed hope for a prompt answer from Rome on the outstanding questions.
Wir sind Kirche also criticized Pope Leo XIV for describing the abuse crisis in terms of individual cases, contrasting that with the insistence of former German bishops’ conference president Georg Bätzing and Bishop Wilmer that the crisis has a systemic character. The group’s positions on governance and doctrine remain those of a reform lobby; they do not bind the universal Church, which continues to teach under the Pope and the bishops in communion with him.
Lücking-Michel challenged the Church’s credibility on equality, asking how an organization that defends democracy and equality can be taken seriously when, in her view, it denies a position of equality to more than half of its members—a demand that touches settled teaching on Holy Orders and the constitution of the Church.
Nuncio contact and a recent Vatican text
Spokesman Christian Weisner voiced cautious optimism about the new apostolic nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Hubertus van Megen, who responded to the initiative’s welcome letter within a week and proposed a meeting. “We are very expectant. Perhaps we need more channels that make our concerns understandable in Rome,” Weisner said.
Sigrid Grabmeier offered a moderately positive reading of the recent Vatican document Venite ad me, while calling its doctrine “still very traditional” and saying it overlooks much contemporary theology: “For many there is no reason to keep passing on what they themselves can no longer believe.”
The German debate thus continues between local pressure for structural change and the need for any lasting reform to remain in full communion with the Successor of Peter and the Church’s living Magisterium.