GERMANY AT THE PRECIPICE: Pope Leo XIV, the German Synodal Conference, and the Limits of Synodality
On 17 January, Leo XIV received Nikola Eterović in private audience at the Apostolic Palace. The meeting was immediately recognised in Roman circles as a significant escalation in the Holy See’s engagement with the German ecclesial crisis, occurring just weeks before the German bishops’ scheduled vote on statutes establishing a permanent Synodal Conference with binding authority shared between bishops and lay representatives.¹
Archbishop Eterović is not a marginal diplomatic figure, nor a mere courier of information. A Croatian prelate of the Holy See’s diplomatic service, he has served as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany since 2013, making him the Pope’s principal representative to both the German state and the German episcopate. Ordained in 1979 and trained at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, he entered Vatican diplomacy in 1988 and served in demanding postings including India, Ukraine, Jordan, Turkey, and Russia.²
Of particular relevance to the present crisis, Eterović served from 2009 to 2013 as Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, one of the most influential curial roles in Rome. In that capacity, he was responsible for coordinating synodal assemblies at the universal level, supervising preparatory and working documents, and ensuring that synodal processes remained strictly subordinate to Catholic doctrine, episcopal authority, and papal primacy. His summoning to the Pope at this juncture therefore signals that the German question has moved beyond routine diplomacy to a point where decisive ecclesial judgment can no longer be deferred.
The meeting did not occur in isolation. It followed years of escalating tension between the Holy See and the German episcopate, repeated Vatican warnings regarding competence and authority, and—most recently—the disclosure of a previously unpublished 2021 letter in which Benedict XVI warned Cardinal Reinhard Marx that the German synodal project would “do harm and end badly” if not stopped.³ That counsel was ignored. The consequences now confront Leo XIV directly.
From Process to Permanent Power
The proposed Synodal Conference represents a decisive escalation beyond the already controversial Synodaler Weg. Draft statutes approved in November 2025 and now awaiting episcopal ratification envisage a standing national body composed of bishops, representatives of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), and other lay delegates.⁴
As reported, this body would possess binding decision-making authority exercised by majority vote, place bishops and laity on an equal juridical footing, require dissenting bishops to justify opposition publicly, and assume shared control over Church finances in Germany—one of the wealthiest ecclesial jurisdictions in the world due to the church-tax system.⁵ This is not synodality as consultation but synodality as substitution: the replacement of hierarchical governance with a parliamentary model.
Rome’s Repeated and Unheeded Warnings
The Holy See’s objections are neither recent nor ambiguous. As early as 2019, Vatican authorities warned that questions concerning ordained ministry, sexual morality, clerical celibacy, and ecclesial governance exceed the competence of any local Church.⁶ These matters pertain to the universal Church and cannot be resolved by national bodies, synodal or otherwise.
Those warnings were reiterated through subsequent communications, meetings, and public statements. The substance never changed: episcopal conferences and synodal assemblies possess no authority to redefine doctrine or restructure the episcopal office. Nevertheless, under the leadership of Cardinal Marx and later Bishop Georg Bätzing, the German process advanced steadily from discussion to implementation, even as Roman cautions were formally acknowledged and practically disregarded.
Doctrinal Bridge: Synodality, Properly Understood
The significance of Archbishop Eterović’s former role as Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops lies precisely here. The Synod of Bishops, as constituted by Apostolica Sollicitudo and governed by universal law, is intrinsically consultative, ordered to assisting the Roman Pontiff rather than substituting for episcopal or papal authority. Synodality, in Catholic theology, is a mode of discernment within the hierarchy, not a redistribution of governing power. By contrast, the German Synodal Conference proposes synodality as a constitutive source of authority, capable of binding bishops by majority vote and reshaping doctrine and governance at a national level. This represents not a development but a categorical inversion of Catholic ecclesiology—one that Eterović, by training and office, is uniquely qualified to recognise.
The Consistory and the Push for Women’s Ordination
The issue has now spilled beyond Germany. According to Italian reporting, Cardinal Marx intervened during a recent extraordinary consistory of cardinals to express the hope of moving toward a female diaconate “in practice,” if not formally.⁷ This confirms Rome’s longstanding concern that the German initiative is intended not merely as a local experiment but as a catalyst for doctrinal change throughout the Church.
Such proposals strike at settled teaching on Holy Orders. Attempts to isolate a “female diaconate” from the sacrament of Orders as a whole have repeatedly been judged theologically incoherent. To advance them by procedural or synodal pressure is to bypass the Magisterium by structural means.
Benedict XVI’s Warning: Theology Before Discipline
The significance of Benedict XVI’s 2021 letter lies in its theological clarity. His objection was not managerial or disciplinary but ecclesiological. Throughout his theological career, Ratzinger warned against the emergence of national churches governed by negotiated consensus rather than sacramental communion.⁸
His judgment that the German synodal path would “end badly” if unchecked now appears prescient. That Cardinal Marx ignored this warning—and that Benedict was later publicly discredited in Germany without episcopal defence—underscores the depth of the present rupture between German ecclesial leadership and the Church’s theological centre of gravity.
Canonical Reality: Why the Project Is Ultra Vires
Under Catholic canon law, bishops possess ordinary, proper, and immediate authority in their dioceses by divine institution.⁹ While consultation with clergy and laity is integral to sound governance, essential authority cannot be delegated or surrendered to mixed bodies exercising power by majority vote.
Synods and episcopal conferences are consultative unless granted deliberative authority by universal law. No such grant exists for the proposed German structure. To bind bishops to the decisions of a national synodal body—especially one with lay parity—contradicts canons 375–381 and the Church’s perennial understanding of episcopal office.
The financial dimension compounds the problem. In Germany’s church-tax system, control of resources is a potent instrument. To place finances under synodal governance risks coercing episcopal conscience through economic pressure, transforming fidelity to doctrine into an administratively penalised position.
Papal Authority and the Present Moment
Even the Synod Secretariat itself has acknowledged that it belongs to the Bishop of Rome, if necessary, to suspend synodal processes that threaten ecclesial unity.¹⁰ Leo XIV therefore faces not a question of competence but of resolve.
He may intervene decisively to suspend or nullify the Synodal Conference statutes. He may delay through further dialogue. Or he may permit the vote to proceed, effectively normalising a structure incompatible with Catholic ecclesiology. History suggests that delay will be interpreted as acquiescence.
Conclusion: A Test Case for the Universal Church
What is unfolding in Germany is not a peripheral dispute but a test case for the Church’s future. The proposed Synodal Conference substitutes procedure for communion, aggregation for authority, and managed consensus for doctrine. That is why Rome has resisted it. That is why Benedict warned against it. And that is why the decision now facing Pope Leo XIV will reverberate far beyond Augsburg.
If this project proceeds unchecked, the question will no longer be whether schism is possible, but when it becomes inevitable.
- Diane Montagna, “Pope Leo XIV Meets German Nuncio as Bishops Prepare Synodal Conference Vote,” Substack, 17 January 2026.
- Holy See Press Office, Annuario Pontificio; diplomatic biography of Archbishop Nikola Eterović.
- Nico Spuntoni, “Scisma a Berlino, la partita ad alto rischio di Leone XIV,” Il Giornale, 17 January 2026; reported and translated by Diane Montagna.
- German Bishops’ Conference and Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Statutes of the Synodal Conference, Fulda meeting, 22 November 2025.
- Montagna, “Pope Leo XIV Meets German Nuncio,” 17 January 2026.
- Congregation for Bishops, Letter to the German Bishops’ Conference, 2019.
- Spuntoni, Il Giornale, 17 January 2026.
- Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996).
- Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium §27; Code of Canon Law (1983), cc. 375–381.
- Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, Report to the Consistory, cited in Spuntoni, Il Giornale, 17 January 2026.
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