Cardinal Reinhard Marx, President of the German Bishops' Conference, received a letter from the Congregation for Bishops on 4 September 2019 on the occasion of the Synodal Path in Germany. In this regard the press spokesman of the German Bishops' Conference, Matthias Kopp, states:

”A few days ago, the President of the German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, received a letter dated 4 September 2019 from the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet. Attached to the letter is an assessment by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts of 1 August 2019 of draft Statutes for the Synodal Path.

The assessment of the Pontifical Council deals with the draft version of the Statutes as of June 2019 and does not yet take into account the version updated in July and after the meeting of the Permanent Council in August, which no longer contains some passages to which the assessment refers. Cardinal Marx has already contacted the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on the matter. He will refer to the letter and the assessment and will hold talks in Rome next week to clear up any misunderstandings.

The letter and the assessment have been forwarded to the German bishops including a provisional translation prepared by the General Secretariat of the German Bishops' Conference. In addition, the Autumn Plenary Assembly of the German Bishops' Conference will deal with the documents at its meeting from 23 to 26 September 2019 in Fulda.

As planned, a meeting of the Joint Conference will be held in Fulda on 13–14 September 2019, with a number of additional participants. This conference was established in the course of the Würzburg Synod (1971–1975) as a permanent organ, comprising ten representatives each of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and members of the German Bishops' Conference. The meeting, in which about 50 persons will participate, is not yet part of the Synodal Path, but part of its preparation.

For reasons of transparency both letters from Rome are available at www.dbk.de on the topic page Synodaler Weg.“