The Pope's response to Cardinal Marx's resignation from the episcopal see of Munich and Freising, originally written in Spanish (Argentinian) and whose official German translation is particularly cumbersome because of the excess of literalism - for example, it literally pours out the saying "tener esqueletos en el armario" ("to have skeletons in the closet"), while the metaphor in German would be "tener cadáveres en el sótano" ("to have corpses in the cellar" ("Leichen im Keller haben"); and the same goes for "to put the meat on the spit" which, translated literally, is unintelligible (the equivalent German expression would be "alles in die Waagschale werfen", "to throw everything on the scales") - has surprised by its speed.... and, at least to the Cardinal himself, by his refusal to accept the resignation.
But this is not only surprising because of the speed, but also because of the difference with the lack of response with respect to the Archdiocese of Cologne. As we have already reported, when the expert report on the abuses On March 18, the auxiliary bishops of Cologne, Dominik Schwaderlapp and Ansgar Puff, as well as the current Archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Hesse (head of the personnel department from 2006 to 2012 and vicar general from 2012 to 2014 in Cologne), resigned from the diocese. The fact that he has not responded so far could be related to the apostolic visitation ordered by Pope Francis on May 28 in the persons of the bishop of Stockholm, Cardinal Anders Arborelius, and the president of the Bishops' Conference of the Netherlands, Bishop Johannes van den Hende, and scheduled to end in the middle of the month. The Pope probably did not want to respond to the requests for resignation until he had the result of this visit which, apart from affecting the three bishops mentioned, responds above all to the growing voices calling for the resignation of the Archbishop of Cologne himself, Cardinal Woelki.
Following the same logic, Francis could have waited until the report on the same matter affecting Cardinal Marx is made public, especially with regard to the period in which he was bishop of Trier (2002-2007) - in 2019, Marx admitted that in 2006 he had omitted to deal with the case of a priest who was accused of having committed several abuses; the Prosecutor's Office opened a file against the priest, but dismissed it, despite clear indications, because the statute of limitations had expired. The result of the report on the matter is expected "in autumn". It will be known then if Marx personally has "skeletons in the closet" (or "corpses in the basement").
The Pope emphasizes that he "agrees with you in describing as a catastrophe the sad history of sexual abuse and the way the Church dealt with it until recently. Francis points out the path that must be followed to overcome the crisis: "It is the path of the Spirit that we must follow, and the starting point is humble confession: we have made a mistake, we have sinned. Neither the polls nor the power of the institutions will save us. We will not be saved by the prestige of our Church, which tends to conceal its sins; we will not be saved by the power of money or the opinion of the media (so often we are too dependent on them). We will be saved by opening the door to the One who can do it and confessing our nakedness: 'I have sinned', 'we have sinned'... and weeping, and stammering as best we can that 'depart from me, for I am a sinner', a legacy that the first Pope left to the Popes and the Bishops of the Church".
The connection between the cards
The Pope's letter to Cardinal Marx is fully in tune with what Francis wrote, on June 29, 2019 - the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, which is also significant - to. "People of God on pilgrimage in Germany", where it was said: "To assume and suffer the current situation does not imply passivity or resignation and even less negligence, on the contrary, it is an invitation to make contact with that which in us and in our communities is necrotic and needs to be evangelized and visited by the Lord. And this requires courage because what we need is much more than a structural, organizational or functional change".
The current letter to the Archbishop of Munich begins precisely by speaking of courage: "First of all, thank you for your courage. It is a Christian courage that is not afraid of the cross, not afraid to be humbled in the face of the tremendous reality of sin". Although the Pope does not expressly mention "structural, organizational or functional change", it is understood when he encourages us to confess "I have sinned", to seek personal conversion.
Nor does the Pope now expressly refer to the "Synodal Way"; he did so in the aforementioned letter of 2019 - which, according to Cardinal Kasper in a recent interview, the representatives of the Synodal Way should have taken more seriously. There he explained - expressly quoting the Conciliar Constitution. Lumen Gentium and the Decree Christus Dominus Paul VI - what synodality should really be: "Synodality from the bottom up, that is, the duty to take care of the existence and the good functioning of the Diocese: the councils, the parishes, the participation of the laity... (cf. CCC 469-494), beginning with the diocese, since it is not possible to have a great synod without going to the base...; and then synodality from the top down, which allows us to live in a specific and singular way the Collegial dimension of the episcopal ministry and of the ecclesial being. Only in this way can we reach and make decisions on essential questions for the faith and the life of the Church".
The connection between the letter to Cardinal Marx and the Letter to the People of God in Germany invites us to read in the same key the passages of the letter to the Archbishop of Munich in which he reminds us that the reform that is demanded in these circumstances "begins with oneself. The reform in the Church has been made by men and women who were not afraid to enter into crisis and allow themselves to be reformed by the Lord. This is the only way, otherwise we will be nothing more than 'reform ideologues' who do not put their own flesh at stake".
Both letters remind us that the reform required under these circumstances "begins with itself".
José M. García Pelegrín
In any case, the Pope does not endorse the thesis that Marx expressed in his letter of resignation that the Church "is at an impasse. If anything, this "deadlock" is due - as the hitherto editor-in-chief of Die TagespostOliver Maksan - that the Church in Germany "is trapped in a straitjacket" because Cardinal Marx has united "the political-ecclesiastical agenda and the treatment of abuse with the Synodal Way" to form an "inextricable tangle".
Indeed, Cardinal Marx is one of those mainly responsible for the fixation that - as the Synodal Way demonstrates - exists in a large part of the "official" laity, and even in part of the hierarchy in Germany, in linking the treatment of sexual abuse to a path that seeks to overcome the "structures of power", while claiming structural "reforms", a position that Francis - in his Letter to the People of God in Germany - calls a "temptation" and a "new Pelagianism": "I remember that in the meeting I had with your pastors in 2015 I was telling them that one of the first and great temptations at the ecclesial level was to believe that the solutions to present and future problems would come exclusively from purely structural, organic or bureaucratic reforms but that, at the end of the day, they would not touch at all the vital cores that demand attention." Quoting his own Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii GaudiumHe added: "This is a new Pelagianism, which leads us to put our trust in administrative structures and perfect organizations".
Insofar as it reminds us - once again - that reform must be the fruit of a personal conversion, Pope Francis' letter to Cardinal Marx could contribute to freeing the Church in Germany from the "straitjacket," or to breaking the Gordian knot of the tangle alluded to earlier. Of course, this would require that those responsible for the Synodal Way pay more attention to it than they did to the Letter to the People of God in Germany.
