Have the German bishops lost their synodal majority?

The chairman of the German bishops’ conference has suggested that the first scheduled meeting of a controversial synodal body will be delayed absent approval of its statutes by the Vatican.

Speaking to media on Friday, Bishop Heiner Wilmer said that the first meeting of a new permanent national body composed of bishops and lay people, known as the “synodal conference,” could not go ahead unless the Vatican approved its statutes, which were approved by Synodal Way participants earlier this year.

“I personally do not expect that we will meet as early as November because of the [Roman] dynamics, because the [decision] goes from one dicastery to the next,” Wilmer said.

The concession by the conference chairman that the marquee product of the years-long German synodal process would not proceed without explicit Vatican approval, even under the guise of a provisional or informal session, appears to be the clearest indication yet that the bishops as a group are not prepared to openly defy Pope Leo XIV.

And the delay of the synodal conference’s creation — either temporary or terminal — could also signal