Bishop Kohlgraf: Situation today as in the Netherlands in 1970 "I now understand better why Rome is on guard"
More than 50 years ago, the Vatican stopped the Dutch bishops' reform programme. Since then, things have gone downhill and today the Catholic Church plays almost no role in the neighbouring country.
Mainz (KNA) Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz hopes that what the Catholic Church in the Netherlands has experienced in its conflict with the Vatican will not be repeated in Germany. "In their 1970 Pastoral Council, the Dutch dealt with exactly the same issues that are on the table today in the Synodal Way in Germany," Kohlgraf said in an interview with the Catholic News Agency (KNA). At the time, Rome had stopped the reform movement with a "communicative disaster".
"I can only hope, and I am also counting on the talks between the German bishops and Rome, that we will now see a different form of communication and Roman intervention," said Kohlgraf. "It will of course have an impact on whether or not more people in Germany will be disappointed and say goodbye to the Church."
Kohlgraf is Chairman of the Pastoral Commission of the German Bishops' Conference, which completed a trip to the Netherlands a week ago. In the Synodal Way, bishops and lay people in Germany are discussing reforms in the areas of power, the role of women, sexual morality and the priestly way of life. The Vatican takes a critical view of this. It has repeatedly warned that a joint governing body of lay people and clergy would restrict the authority of the bishops too much.
"I now understand better why Rome is on guard," said Kohlgraf. Because the situation in Germany today is the same as it was in the Netherlands back then. "It was about the relationship between the church and the modern world, about democracy in the church, about sexual morality and celibacy." The Dutch catechism had developed the church's teachings based on people's experiences of reality. Rome stopped this. "This actually caused trauma and wounds for many people." As a result, liberal Catholicism in the Netherlands had declined.
Today, more than 60 per cent of Dutch people have no religion - and the trend is rising. The proportion of Catholics has been falling for decades and currently stands at 18 per cent.