Vatican City – On the morning of 22 November 2025, Pope Leo XIV received Professor Katharina Westerhorstmann in a private audience. She is a scholar of Theology and Ethics at the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Gaming campus in Austria (USA).
The German theologian is among the signatories of the letters addressed to Pope Francis, in which she and other academics expressed concern over the direction taken by the German Synodal Path, particularly regarding sexual morality and unity with Rome.
A “challenging” and competent female figure
Katharina Westerhorstmann represents precisely the kind of woman whom a certain sector of the Church — one that speaks of listening and synodality — is in fact unwilling to listen to. Young, excellently educated, eloquent, and with wide-ranging interests, she is an independent mind, captivated by the search for truth that inspired her model, St. Edith Stein.
She contributed to the Synodal Path with articles and interventions grounded in solid, competent argumentation, expressed with clarity and without polemical tones. Precisely for this reason, over time she became an uncomfortable minority voice. In Synodal Forum IV (“Living successful relationships – Living love in sexuality and partnership”), Westerhorstmann belonged to that group of critical voices contesting the direction adopted by the majority. When announcing her departure from the Forum, she gave the same reason that had led Auxiliary Bishop Dominik Schwaderlapp to withdraw two years earlier: the lack of a true culture of dialogue. The Forum had become, in practice, the place where — under pressure, both in timing and content — the pre-planned transformation of Catholic sexual morality was being pushed through, while dissenting voices were treated as a quantité négligeable, to be tolerated or ignored.
Together with others, Westerhorstmann also co-authored an alternative document to the Forum’s base text, published on synodalebeitrage.de, which remained faithful to the Church’s teaching: the centrality of marriage as the ordinary place of sexuality; rejection of reducing sexuality to mere self-determination or to an individual’s so-called “responsible freedom”; insistence that authentic love does not seek to possess, but recognizes the other as a gift; a reminder of chastity as a full expression of love, in which the tendency to use the other diminishes and the capacity to welcome the other increases; and the affirmation that the ultimate vocation is not emotional fulfillment in itself, but the encounter with Christ and life with Him.
The theologian has repeatedly highlighted the question of female charisms in the Church: women’s gifts must be more deeply valued, yet — she observes — in Germany one sometimes tends to identify too quickly a visible office with a charism. She considers this an “excessive simplification”: a role, even a prestigious one, is not automatically a sign of a gift from God. Ecclesial discernment must verify which gifts truly emerge, in the light of Scripture, spiritual experience, and adequate human and theological maturity.
The letter to the Pope: a concern for unity, not a strategy of rupture
Westerhorstmann explained in 2023 the context of the letter sent to the Pope together with theologian Marianne Schlosser, journalist Dorothea Schmidt, and philosopher of religion Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz. Their initiative was born from a dual observation: in Germany, the processes initiated by the Synodal Path not only continue but are being further institutionalized through the Synodal Committee; meanwhile, interventions and clarifications from Rome — in their view — are being largely ignored.
“We saw that in Germany the processes initiated by the Synodal Path were moving forward and, at the same time, we clearly perceived the intentions coming from Rome. For this reason, we wished to express our concern directly to the Pope, who, in his role of leadership, bears a certain ultimate responsibility,” Westerhorstmann stated. The timing of the letter was not strategically chosen, but the launch of the Synodal Committee heightened their unease: how would the German bodies concretely respond to Rome’s positions? Their impression, she said, was that these were essentially being ignored, which prompted them to address the Pope directly. The core intention of the letter — as reflected in the theologian’s words — was twofold: to express a “Sorge um die Einheit” (concern for unity) with Rome in view of a path that risks distancing the Church in Germany from the universal Church, and to recall the Pope’s role as the one who bears the ultimate responsibility for safeguarding this unity, bringing to him — as laywomen in the Church — their concerns.
For Westerhorstmann, naming conflicts does not mean fostering division. On the contrary, it is precisely because real divergences exist regarding the future of the Church in Germany that they must be brought frankly before the governing authority. “Expressing a concern begins with acknowledging that conflicts exist,” she explains, adding that their initiative stemmed “in the spirit of unity,” not division: “We wanted to affirm that, despite a plurality of viewpoints, the Church must remain united under one roof.”
The Pope’s response and the method of dialogue
The professor recounts being struck by the fact that the Pope responded to their second letter. For her, this meant that the Pope took their intervention seriously, not as a nuisance. She was especially grateful for the clarity and verbindlichkeit— the binding and precise character — of the response. In the passage she most emphasized, the Pope invites them to: adopt a Gospel perspective; place the poor at the center; correct the focus of a debate too absorbed by structural issues and conflict; and return to prayer, penance, and adoration as the place where the Church rediscovers its center. Westerhorstmann read in these words a positive impulse: the combination of a critique of the German process with an invitation to concentrate on what is essential in Christian life — love of neighbor, seeking the Lord in the poor — as a path toward healing tensions.
Another decisive element was the publication of the letter: the signatories explicitly asked the Holy See whether it was consistent with the Pope’s will to publish the text. Only after receiving an affirmative answer was the letter released. For Westerhorstmann, this confirmed the Pope’s preferred method: not only abstract statements but a personal, epistolary dialogue that can then become a contribution for the whole Church.
Leo XIV listens to the excluded voices
In this context, today’s meeting with Leo XIV takes on the character of a genuine acknowledgment. While Francis limited himself to responding in writing to the second letter, Leo XIV has chosen to personally receive and listen to these individuals. He has already done so with several bishops who have openly and firmly criticized the German Synodal Path, and he now extends this dialogue to these lay voices, in order to discern with greater clarity the steps to be taken.
At the same time, the work of the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia with representatives of the Synod continues. In recent weeks, the commission met again in the Vatican and heard, as guest, Bishop Stefan Oster S.D.B., one of the bishops who distanced himself from the German Synodal Path due to positions he considered extreme and no longer compatible with full communion with Rome.
d.S.D.
Silere non possum