FRANKFURT, Germany — The fourth plenary assembly of the Synodal Path in Frankfurt ended Sept. 10 with a series of far-reaching reform resolutions.
They concern, for example, the position of women and trans people in the Church, sexual morality, gay priests and the future national leadership structure of the Catholic Church, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA. It said all texts involving changes to Church doctrine were formulated as proposals for consideration by the pope and not as independent dogmatic changes by the German Church.
KNA reported that several proposals could not be discussed because some debates, which got emotional, took more time than planned. Nevertheless, Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the lay Central Committee of German Catholics, said, “We have achieved a lot, and we are not going to stop here.”
Participants discussed the position of intersex and transgender people in the Catholic Church. An emotional debate centered on a paper calling for more acceptance, with 94.5 percent voting in favor of it on first reading.
The paper calls for changes, including making it possible in the future to omit the gender in the baptismal register or to use the term “diverse” when baptizing children with an unclear gender identity, KNA reported. Transgender Catholics should be given the opportunity to have their civil status and first names easily changed in the baptismal register, the paper said.
“If believers who are transgender or intersex are denied the Sacrament of Marriage, they should be able to have their partnership blessed,” stated the text, which a working group will now revise.
The Synodal Path is due to end with a fifth plenary assembly in Frankfurt in March.
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