Cardinal Walter Kasper has denounced the German episcopal conference’s commitment to radical changes advanced by their “Synodal Path,” saying that the German bishops must recognize that the Church cannot be “remolded and reshaped to suit the situation.”

Cardinal Kasper—a noted theologian known for his liberal views, and a former president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity—said that if the German bishops failed to heed to concerns expressed by other bishops around the world, their campaign for change would be “breaking its own neck.”

Noting that the Synodal Path pledges German bishops to implement policies that conflict with current Church teaching, Cardinal Kasper remarked that the bishops, in doing so, would be renouncing their obligations. “Constitutionally,” he said, “the whole thing could only be called a coup.”