In March, Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, rejected resolutions of the German Synodal Way on lay homilies and lay baptisms.
Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, chairman of Germany’s bishops’ conference, said that he would press ahead with plans to seek an indult from the Vatican that would permit German laity to preach homilies. He added that “theologically qualified and pastorally competent women and men” have preached homilies in his diocese “for a long time.”