Lay Catholic leader demands women in top positions as bishops meet
COLOGNE – The Roman Catholic Church in Germany should open all positions to women, a senior female lay leader said on Tuesday (22), as German bishops held their twice yearly meeting in the central city of Fulda.
“Equal access to all positions that the Catholic Church has to offer for all those baptized and confirmed is what is at issue here,” the vice president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Claudia Luecking-Michel, told regional public broadcaster SWR.
The German Bishops Conference is to discuss reform within the church at its autumn gathering, which started on Tuesday.
The discussions are being held under the rubric of the Synodal Path, launched last year to process widespread evidence of sexual abuse within the church.
“It’s not about kindly granting women a bit extra and allowing them a few crumbs from the men’s table, but rather about finally acknowledging women as members of our church with equal rights and of equal value, with the same rights and duties as others,” Luecking-Michel said.
Luecking-Michel, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), welcomed the fact that the chairman of the German Bishops Conference, Georg Baetzing, aimed to support the appointment of female deacons.
“But of course, that is not insufficient in my view,” she said.
Moves to reform the Catholic Church in Germany to allow women a greater role have met with opposition from Rome.
-dpa