Cardinal Marx pushes for reforms in Church (Deutsche Welle)

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich used the recent report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese as an occasion to press for fundamental reforms in the Church.

“There is no future for Christianity in our country without a renewed Church,” the cardinal told an audience at the Catholic Academy. “For me, the reappraisal of sexual abuse is part of a fundamental renewal.”

Cardinal Marx and the leaders of the German episcopal conference have explained their “synodal path”—calling for dramatic changes in Church teaching and discipline—as a necessary response to the scandal caused by the sex-abuse crisis.

The cardinal acknowledged his own “unforgivable” failure to act against sexual abuse in the past, and said that he was serious in his offer to resign (which Pope Francis declined). However, he said that the abuse scandal reflects “systemic causes,” and insisted on the “need for reform of the Church’s positions and its structures.”