The German rainbow church: are the majority of bishops heretical or in schism? (1)
By Oliver Wagner | 5 November 2025
Look Who’s Back (2012) is a novel by German author Timur Vermes taking a humorous look at the return of Adolf Hitler. And lo and behold, the dictator is more popular than ever. Indeed, a rational observer cannot fail to notice the reemergence of subservience and blind obedience to authority in Germany (if ever it was really gone). Online reporting centres for so-called hate crimes are growing and thriving — subsidised, of course, by the government to the tune of millions of Euros. There is no denying that the ugly side of Germany is back.
I am German myself and am stunned by current developments. I was born in 1966 and when I was growing up, “Never again” and “Resist the beginnings” were common phrases. And we really meant it!
Now, several decades later, “you know who” and his henchmen are back. Not in the brown Nazi uniforms of yesteryear, but in the black uniforms of Antifa or camouflaged in civilian clothing. They are targeting anyone who thinks differently, or to put it more simply: anyone who wants to think for themselves. Who is standing in their way? A few percent of upright democrats, most of whom are not Christians. The devil himself has been infiltrating the Church in Germany for decades, manoeuvring his accomplices into the position where they now are, at the levers of Catholic power in Germany: the bureaucrats in the vast apparatus and the majority of the bishops.
The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has become the symbol of a modernist, secular-oriented apparatus that fights against Church doctrine. Above all, the bishops and their unscrupulous helpers from “Catholic” lay organisations such as the self-appointed Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) are opposed to the Church’s teachings on morality — especially sexual morality — which are deemed too demanding, too Christian, too unmarketable.
And this brings us back to my opening remarks: Germans love to be taken care of. They feel most comfortable when “experts” tell them what to think and do, and they are in their element when both thinking and doing require little effort on their part. Then they spy on their neighbours — without any instruction to do so. Germans know what they owe the government as their provider.
What the German bishops demand of the few remaining Church-goers is correspondingly simple and as secular (viz. woke) as possible. Because that’s what people are familiar with, and since all they have to do is nod benevolently, they have come to terms with it. This has gone so far that the few remaining faithful priests are viciously attacked and reported to the woke bishops. Traditional priests such as Father Antony Pullokaran from Illerberg have been sidelined and forbidden to practise true Catholic doctrine and traditions.
Meanwhile, German heresy is flourishing, with remarkable developments that raise profound questions about the theological orientation of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. The most recent example: the Diocese of Aachen where, in October 2025, openly heretical “guidelines” have been introduced for blessing ceremonies, explicitly including blessings for same-sex couples. Bishop Helmut Dieser announced that the guidelines published by the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics in April 2024, entitled “Blessings Give Love Strength”, would henceforth apply as pastoral guidelines in his diocese. This decision explicitly includes not only the divorced and remarried, but also homosexual couples.
What may at first glance appear to be a local pastoral measure actually marks another milestone in a conflict that is increasingly distancing the German Church from Rome. These blessing ceremonies are taking place despite repeated critical signals from the Vatican. While Pope Francis has already condemned the German efforts, even though his clear statements have often been seemingly defused by confusing later statements, Pope Leo XIV has already shown himself to be much more distant from such initiatives.
The implementation of this guideline in Aachen is exemplary of a development that has been shaping the Catholic Church in Germany for years: a creeping but increasingly open dissent between the majority of German bishops and Church teaching on central issues of sexual morality, the question of office, and ecclesiology. Critics are no longer talking only about “pastoral experiments,” but are asking whether this is not already a substantial theological schism—possibly even heresy.
These tendencies first became really clear with the convening of the so-called German Synodal Way in March 2019. Officially disguised as a response to the devastating results of a study on the extent of sexual abuse, the Synodal Way had only one goal from the outset: the complete destruction of Catholic doctrine in Germany.
The Synodal Way, which continues to exist today despite repeated warnings from Rome, differs institutionally from a regular diocesan synod or a particular council. In terms of canon law, it is a construct without a clear canonical basis. The statutes stipulate that decisions must be taken by a two-thirds majority of all participants and a two-thirds majority of the bishops present. This was intended to ensure the participation of the laity on the one hand, and to preserve episcopal authority on the other.
However, the statutes also contain a remarkable clause: “Decisions of the synodal assembly do not in themselves have any legal effect. The authority of the Bishops’ Conference and of the individual diocesan bishops to issue legal norms and exercise their teaching authority within the scope of their respective competences remains unaffected by the decisions.” In other words, the decisions are recommendations that the bishops can implement individually or as a conference, but are not required to do so.
This structure was criticised from the outset. The Vatican warned as early as September 2019 that the Synodal Path carried the risk of undermining episcopal authority. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, then Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, wrote in a letter to Cardinal Marx, then President of the DBK, that the proposed structure was more reminiscent of a “particular council,” which, however, required explicit Vatican approval.
One of the most central and controversial points of the Synodal Way concerns the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. The current Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC Nos. 2357–2359) teaches that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “cannot be approved under any circumstances,” even though homosexual-oriented persons should be “accepted with respect, compassion and tact.”
The Synodal Way has fundamentally questioned this position. The action plan, “Magisterial Reassessment of Homosexuality”, adopted in September 2022, explicitly calls for:
- The removal of homosexuality from the list of “mortal sins against chastity” in the Catechism
- The recognition that same-sex sexuality is “not a sin” that separates one from God
- Ethical equality between homosexual and heterosexual orientations
- The lifting of the ban on homosexual men entering the priesthood
The reasoning is based primarily on a reference to an “expanded understanding of fertility” — which is to be understood not purely in biological terms, but also in social and spiritual terms — as well as on alleged findings in the human sciences according to which homosexuality represents an “anthropological normality”.
The German text contains structured liturgical elements — “acclamation, prayer and song”, “words from Holy Scripture and their interpretation” and “blessings with praise, thanksgiving and intercessions” — and thus comes very close to being a ritual, which, in the opinion of Roman observers, is precisely what Fiducia Supplicans ruled out.
Even more fundamental is the debate over the question of women’s ordination. In the apostolic constitution Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) by Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church teaches that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that all the faithful of the Church must definitively adhere to this decision”. This formulation claims the highest magisterial authority—some theologians and the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, even took the view that it fulfils the criteria of papal infallibility.
And what have the German bishops done? They have opened a synodal forum on “Women in Ministry and Office in the Church” and openly attacked this teaching. The basic text adopted in September 2022 argues:
- The teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is “not accepted and not understood by large sections of the people of God”.
- It must be “bindingly examined and clarified at this level” whether this teaching “infinitely binds the Church or not”.
- The exclusion of women from sacramental ministry is “scandalous” because it “obscures the message of the Gospel for many Christians”.
- “It is not the participation of women in all church ministries and offices that requires justification, but the exclusion of women from sacramental ministry”,
This argument reverses the burden of proof: while Church tradition assumes that priestly ordination, which is reserved for men, is based on divine decree (and therefore cannot be changed), the Synodal Path claims that this is merely a Church discipline that needs to be justified.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, who has been chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference since March 2020, has repeatedly expressed his support for the ordination of women. In September 2025, he said in an interview: “I want it and I am doing everything I can to achieve it”. He also stated that the ordination of women is “a commandment of justice”.
To be continued …