It is possible make a long list of occasions on which senior Vatican officials have criticised the German Synodal Way, including harsh criticisms of it by Pope Francis in an interview in January last year.
However, the reality is more complex. In November 2022 the German Bishops made an _ad limina_ visit to Rome, which would have been the natural opportunity to apply the brakes, but instead the bishops returned home determined to continue. The Conference President Bishop Bätzing suggested that they were travelling in the same direction as the Vatican’s own ‘Synod on Synodality’.
Comment
One reading of the situation would be that the German Synodal Way usefully brought radical proposals into the Church’s conversation, making the Synod on Synodality look more acceptable to theological conservatives by comparison. Perhaps the German Bishops themselves have taken this view.
This would explain why relatively minor deviations from Vatican policy by conservative bishops continue to be treated harshly, whereas there seemed to be no negative consequences for German bishops ignoring repeated criticisms. These criticisms were just for show.
Whether that was true or not, it seems that the Pope Francis has determined that the Synodal Way must be stopped, if not from contradicting sacramental theology and the Church’s discipline, then at least from undermining the role of bishops, and therefore of the Holy See, as the ultimate wielders of spiritual authority in the Church.