CNA Staff, Jul 27, 2020 / 07:00 am
Cardinal Walter Kasper has defended a new Vatican instruction on parishes after it was criticized by several German bishops.
In a July 27 guest commentary for Domradio, the radio station of Cologne archdiocese, Kasper said that critics missed the document's central point.
"The German criticism completely misses the actual concern of the instruction: the pastoral conversion to a missionary footing. But precisely this basic concern of Pope Francis would be highly topical in view of the disturbing recently published numbers of departures from the Church."
Kasper, a theologian and former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, was referring to statistics issued last month which showed that a record number of Catholics left the Church in Germany in 2019.