The German Bishops' Conference published on 6 October a "tribute" to a September 2019 appeal of German "theologians", in which they called for Protestant communion.
The "tribute" was drafted by the bishops' Ecumenical Working Group (ÖAK) in May 2020. It spreads the erroneous view that Protestant Communion can be justified as an "individual decision of conscience."
Actually, the bishops wanted to vote on this “tribute" at their autumn general assembly. But the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith got ahead of them and rejected in September Protestant Communion.
The bishops had no choice but to postpone the vote "out of respect" for the Vatican. Nevertheless, Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, the president of the German bishops, announced at the autumn general assembly that he would publish the "tribute" anyway. Bätzing is also the chairman of the ecumenical working group that has violated the text.
The background to these intrigues is the plan to officially force through an official …More