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Still, the massive opposition to dialogue on the part of the ultra-Roman wing of the worldwide episcopate should not be underestimated. Again I call attention to the situation in Germany as typical of that elsewhere.

In Cologne, the largest archbishopric, currently headed by the conservative Cardinal Joachim Meisner, only nine priests were ordained in 2009, and only four in 2010. The 221 parishes will soon be downsized to 180. The situation is the same in the Essen diocese under Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck, another member of the conservative wing; there, only two new priests were ordained in 2009 and only one in 2010. He has amalgamated some 272 parishes (with roughly 350 church buildings still in ecclesiastic use) into 43 mega-parishes (information provided in 2010 by the art historian Dr Christel Darmstadt from the grassroots campaign ‘Save Bochum’s Churches’). Clearly, as role models for future priests, such conservative prelates alienate more than they attract.

The diocese of Limburg offers an especially alarming example of the damage being done by the narrow-minded, conservative prelates appointed under John Paul II and especially under Benedict XVI. There, in 2007, the widely admired, open-minded Bishop Franz Kamphaus was replaced by Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, a protégé of Cardinal Meisner. Fully committed to the Roman line, he high-handedly set about streamlining his diocese. (See the report by N. Sommer in Publik-Forum on 3 December 2010 and also the report in Spiegel online on 15 November 2010.) He also ignored a public letter from ten of his priests accusing him of excessive spending, of dealing arrogantly with his clergy and of fostering a general climate of fear in the diocese (reported in Frankfurter Allgemeine, 17 September 2012).

Specifically, he has been taken to task for treating himself to an exorbitantly expensive and opulent episcopal palace to replace the modest housing of his predecessor. On his instructions, the new vicar general has warned the clergy to observe discretion and maintain secrecy, thus leaving them afraid to speak out and tell the truth about the prevailing conditions in the Church; the editors of church newspapers are being pressured to avoid controversial topics; every effort is being made to re-clericalize diocesan life. The candidates for the priesthood are once again inculcated with clerical arrogance, and, contrary to an explicit decision by the diocesan Council of Priests, clerics who toe the line are once again being rewarded with Roman titles like ‘Prelate’ or ‘Monsignor’. Meanwhile, lay people are being marginalized and are no longer permitted to act in the name of the Church, e.g. lay theologians serving in pastoral and liturgical roles are no longer called ‘pastoral ministers’. Under no circumstances are remarried divorcees permitted to receive Holy Communion or homosexual couples to receive a blessing. The overall prevailing policy is to put an end to the parishes as they have existed for centuries and replace them with centres of worship staffed by the few remaining priests. This means that the diminishing numbers of practising Catholics must make ever-longer journeys to receive the sacraments at these centres.

Surely, one can understand the cry for help from the priests affected by such policies. In their open letter to their bishop they wrote:

Are we old-fashioned models that are being phased out? We are pastors who wish to be close to and truly share in the lives of the people in their parish; priests who have come to love their parishes and who do not want to change and accumulate parishes as you would change your shirt; who are committed to a loving community of discussion and prayer …; who are involved in parish councils; who have taken on responsibility and are increasingly finding themselves relegated to the margins as though they were just pieces of furniture …; artists and intellectuals who perceive very clearly that their world is not the world of finery and tassels once again used by the Church for embellishment and adornment nor the world of glossy, puffed-up kitsch expressed in empty phrases …

The letter could equally have been addressed to Bishop Georg Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, a former professor of dogmatic theology and friend of Ratzinger, who enjoys an even worse reputation than his colleague in Limburg, thanks to his authoritarian, anti-ecumenical church policies and hostility to the laity. But, already in February 2010, Müller was declaring that the Church had everything under control. He has repeatedly taken action against critical journalists, and, in August 2010, he denounced the public discussion of clerical sex abuse as ‘stage-managed public criticism’. After all, he claimed, everything possible had already been done for the victims of abuse. In January 2013, Müller, now cardinal archbishop in Rome and Ratzinger’s successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had the audacity to suggest that the ongoing criticism of the ‘Catholic Church’ – by which he means the Catholic hierarchy – harks back to the former campaigns of the totalitarian ideologies against Christianity and evokes ‘an artificially generated outrage these days that already reminds one of a pogrom atmosphere’ (interview with Archbishop Müller: ‘Deliberate discrediting of the Catholic Church’, Die Welt, 1 February 2013). Not surprisingly, Bishop Müller showed little or no concern for the victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions when their representatives rejected the bishop’s offer of monetary compensation. Instead of a four-digit lump sum paid out quickly, the bishops’ ‘round table’ proposed a long, drawn-out, petty examination of every individual case.

On the other hand, the conservative wing of the German episcopate lost one of its most outspoken spokesmen in April 2010, when Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg was forced to resign under a cloud after a string of press reports exposed not only homosexual and alcohol abuse among his notoriously conservative seminarians but also a long list of personal failings, including child-beating, alcohol abuse, financial malfeasance, abuse of authority, etc., going back as far as his earlier years as parish priest and later as bishop in Eichstätt and Augsburg. When attempts to deny the charges and squash the reporting failed, the German bishops and even Pope Benedict XVI dropped him like a hot potato. His subsequent struggle for rehabilitation revealed a complete loss of any sense of reality. (For a summary of this sordid affair see the article by Anna Arco in The Catholic Herald, Friday 2 July 2010.) Statistics indicate the gravity of the crisis in his diocese: whereas in 2009 some 7,000 people left the Church in his diocese, as a consequence of the sordid affair surrounding his retirement the figure rose to 12,000.

In the wake of these recent scandals, resistance to any form of dialogue or reform by the conservative bishops in Germany seems to be weakening. Still, too many bishops hope to follow Rome’s example and sit out the deep-seated church crisis as though it were a mere media smear campaign; with the blessing of the pope, they continue to rule as before. By acting in this manner, however, they are only making their Church more and more sick.

Unfortunately, in other countries, for example in the United States, the situation created by the papal policy of replacing independent-minded liberal bishops by line-toeing conservatives has produced similar disastrous results. In the words of the distinguished Jesuit Thomas J. Reese (see his report in the Washington Post, 16 November 2010), the Conference of Catholic Bishops in America has increasingly ‘tilted to the right’. The former vice-president and current president of the American Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, now plays a particularly nefarious role. Already as a leading member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), he had successfully edged out opposition to the new slavishly word-for-word translation of the Latin Mass into English. Cardinal George has also led the attack on President Obama’s healthcare reform, claiming it would fund abortions, even though the Catholic Health Association disputes this claim.

In previous years, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops had had a number of outstanding presidents such as Cardinal Joseph Bernadin of Chicago, who worked in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. But, under the bishops appointed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the direction taken by the Bishops’ Conference has shifted radically to the right. Contrary to previous custom, these bishops successfully prevented the moderate vice-president of the conference from being elected the next president. Instead of reflecting the full range of Catholic social teaching, the American bishops now focus their attention almost exclusively on two moral questions: abortion and gay marriage. Ignoring the social issues emphasized by the Democratic Party, they have no scruples about supporting the Republican obstruction of all policies of the Obama administration. Like so many episcopal conferences, the American episcopate overlooks the need for fundamental changes in the crisis-ridden American Church, changes that would halt the general decline and end the self-chosen retreat into a ghetto situation.

In short, there is little or no hope that the illness affecting the Church will manage to heal itself without a radical turnaround on the part of the episcopate.