"Against the background of the reform proposals discussed in Germany, these issues were particularly well received by the Church and public, but they were not the main topics of the synod."
"This discussion will continue," Marx insisted.
Although the final synodal document was "formally presented" along with the pope's response, Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, and Cardinal Lorenzo Baldesseri both emphasized during the Vatican press conference that it has no magisterial weight and does not authorize any diocesan bishop to ordain married men.
In contrast to the resignation and protests expressed, another German churchman welcomed the pope's document.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith welcomed Querida Amazonia, saying the pope "does not want to fuel existing political, ethnic and inner-Church conflicts and conflicts of interest, but rather to overcome them."
"The Pope does not draw from [the final synodal document] any dramatic and disconcerting conclusions," Cardinal Müller wrote in his own response on Wednesday.
"Rather, he wishes to offer the Church and all people of good will his own answers, in order to help to ensure a 'harmonious, creative and fruitful reception of the whole synodal process'."
Müller said that the text could have "the reconciling effect of reducing internal Church factions, ideological fixations and the danger of inner emigration or open resistance."
The cardinal said the pope has made an important call for renewed missionary commitment and zeal from all the faithful for the Amazon region, and underscored the dignity and mission of the laity.
"The lay faithful are not defined by the fact that they can do everything except that which is exclusively reserved to priests, but by their participation in the total mission of the Church on the basis of Baptism and Confirmation," Müller wrote, noting that "the importance of the ecclesial ministries of laymen and women, who 'are called in various ways to direct collaboration with the apostolate of the hierarchy,' is rightly recalled" by the pope.
Pope Francis, Müller said, had made a clear choice in his non-treatment of the demands for dramatic changes to the clerical state and the divisions these had caused in the wider Church.
(Story continues below)
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"The Pope does not want to fuel existing political, ethnic and inner-Church conflicts and conflicts of interest, but rather to overcome them."
"It is to be hoped," the cardinal wrote, "that the interpreters of this document will refrain from unnecessary harshness and take up the concerns of the Holy Father like true sons and daughters of the Church in a spirit of agreement and collaboration."