THE FIRST MAJOR TEST FOR POPE LEO: HINT, IT IS NOT CARDINAL CUPICH’S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TLM OR EVEN THE TLM ITSELF—THAT’S PEANUTS COMPARED TO WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN

 

From a commentary at Rorate Caeli:

The German Bishops' Conference has convened itself to lead a “synodal path,” which aims to extend to the universal Church the ‘binding’ decisions of their “permanent synod,” including the equalization of clergy and laity, the ministerial ordination of women, the inclusion of homosexuals in the Church, opening all the sacraments to them, including marriage.

The Holy See has intervened more than once to warn the German bishops, ever since Abp. Filippo Iannone, whom Leo XIV appointed head of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2025, wrote to their president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, to warn that these disruptive issues, “do not concern the Church in Germany but the universal Church and, with few exceptions, cannot be the subject of deliberations or decisions by a particular Church.”

 The German bishops, however, have repeatedly ignored Rome's warnings. Their goal, as Vaticanist Nico Spuntoni observes in Il Giornale on January 17, seems to be to “spread a German contagion to the rest of the Church.” 

Will synodal neo-Communism find a new and more radical expression in the concluding assembly of the Synodaler Weg, to be held in Stuttgart from January 29 to 31? Or will the revolutionary process of the German bishops undergo a strategic retreat? In any case, Pope Leo XIV will face one of the first decisive issues of his pontificate.