Germany: Bishops’ Assembly. Church’s state of health, assisted suicide, ecumenism, abuse and synodal journey on the agenda

The Spring Plenary Assembly of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) will take place from 23 to 25 February. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions in force, the meeting will take place remotely. The 68 members of the DBK will gather under the guidance of their President, Mgr. Georg Bätzing, Bishop of Limburg. The Apostolic Nuncio, Mgr. Nikola Eterović, and the President of the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Ricardo Ernesto Centella Guzmán of Sucre, will be attending as guest speakers. The focus of the consultations will be on a day of study about the experiences relating to abjurations and new Church members. In the background will be the general statistics of the Church in Germany, analysed at the autumn general assembly in 2020. They will be evaluated “with future-oriented perspectives and guidance opportunities for the new members”. Other items on the agenda will be the current state of the synodal journey; the evaluation of the session on 4 and 5 February, which was held online with a great deal of participation also from the media; the debate on assisted suicide with the State-Catholic Church confrontation; and ways to take stock of and advance the debate on the deliberations of the Ecumenical Working Group on “Together at the Lord’s Table”. The debate will also focus on “Enlightenment and Elaboration” and on how to address the findings of the report into “child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, deacons and religious”, with the different views of the various dioceses. Also related to this topic will be a current report on how to address spiritual abuse. During the work, the new Secretary of the DBK will also be elected.
Massimo Lavena