Germany’s Catholic bishops and lay representatives gathered on Thursday for the final meeting of a potentially groundbreaking reform assembly that has been marked by tensions between liberalizers and conservatives and is drawing increasingly open opposition from the Vatican.
The German process, dubbed the “Synodal Path,” was launched in 2019 in response to the sex abuse crisis that has rocked the church in Germany and many other countries and has been a major factor in large numbers of people leaving the church.
