Vatican City, Oct 11, 2019 / 11:00 am
A senior legal official in the Vatican has dismissed the idea that a planned "synodal process" in Germany will be "binding," noting that bishops must exercise their authority in unity and obedience to the authority of the pope.
Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the idea that a synodal process in any particular country could change universal Church teaching and discipline is "not a possible way of thinking" in the Church.
"It is useless for anyone to pretend that the German synod is binding, because no one has given that authority to the German synod. No one can bind the faithful beyond their authority to bind or pastors beyond their authority to bind," Arrieta said in an Oct. 11 interview.
Arrieta was one of the drafters and signatories to a legal assessment of the draft statutes for a Synodal Assembly currently being advanced by the bishops of Germany.