Study: Young German Priests Reject German Synod
The study surveyed 847 clerics who were ordained between 2010 and 2021 and 1,668 men who left the seminary. 153 priests and 18 former candidates responded. The average age of the priests was 37. Over 97% were born and raised in Germany. Just over half have two or more siblings.
The results showed that 75.7% of the priests believed that [real] reform would be achieved by a greater focus on the liturgy and the content of the Catholic faith. A small minority of priests (4.6%) said that 'no reform' was needed.
Only 25.7% of priests still believe that women should be invalidly ordained to the priesthood, and only 29.6% support betraying Christ's demand for celibacy.
At a press conference, Matthias Sellmann, who conducted the survey, said it was clear that younger priests did not support the priorities of the German synod. He described the majority of young priests as "alienated from the attitudes and [lacking] values of modern [= decadent] society".
A similar study from the US six months ago concluded that the proportion of young US priests who admit to following the ideology of the oligarchs ("progressivism") has dropped so low that the phenomenon has "all but disappeared".
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