The Conciliar Sect’s New German Helmsman: Bishop Wilmer and the Theology of Apostasy
The Pillar Catholic portal reports that Bishop Heiner Wilmer, a member of the Dehonian order, has been elected chairman of the German bishops’ conference, succeeding Bishop Georg Bätzing. Wilmer, presented as a “bridge-builder” and “spiritual” leader, openly supports the “synodal way,” a program of doctrinal and disciplinary revolution within the German “church.” His inaugural speech, echoing the Gloria’s “peace to people of goodwill,” frames his mission around a naturalistic, human-centered project of “justice” divorced from the exclusive reign of Christ the King. This election is not a mere administrative change but a definitive public act of apostasy by the German episcopate, choosing a leader whose entire profile embodies the condemned errors of Modernism, naturalism, and the separation of Church and State dogmatically defined by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors and St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu.
A “Spirituality” of Naturalism and Syncretism
Bishop Wilmer’s identity is rooted in the Dehonian order, an institute whose founder, Léon Dehon, had his beatification cause paused in 2005 due to accusations of antisemitism. This fact alone, reported without condemnation in the source article, reveals the deep-seated pathologies within the modernist “spirituality” Wilmer embodies. The Dehonian emphasis on being “prophets of love” and “servants of reconciliation,” devoid of any mention of the necessity of Catholic unity, the conversion of souls, or the reparation for sin through the Sacrifice of the Mass, is a pure humanistic project. It mirrors the condemned errors of the Syllabus: “The science of philosophical things and morals… may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority” (Error 57), and “All action of God upon man and the world is to be denied” (Error 2). Wilmer’s invocation of “peace for the world and justice as a task,” while sounding noble, is precisely the secularized, naturalistic “peace” Pius XI condemned in Quas Primas as the fruit of removing “Jesus Christ and His most holy law from… public life.” The article notes his book Gott ist nicht nett (“God Is Not Nice”) and his dialogue with a Jewish writer, Etty Hillesum, which points to a theology that reduces God to a vague, impersonal “goodness” compatible with religious indifferentism—the very error condemned by Pius IX: “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Syllabus, Error 15).
The “Synodal Way”: A Systematic Rejection of Catholic Doctrine
The article explicitly states that Wilmer “supports the wide-ranging changes in Catholic teaching and practice demanded by the synodal way.” This is a direct admission of adherence to a heretical program. The “synodal way” is not a “discussion” but a pre-determined path to doctrinal dissolution, targeting the non-negotiable truths of the Catholic faith. It seeks to legitimize homosexuality, undermine priestly celibacy, and grant laypeople governing authority—all propositions condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili as Modernist errors. For instance:
- The attack on the hierarchical structure of the Church: The synodal way’s push for permanent lay-led bodies directly contradicts the doctrine that “the Church is a perfect society… which cannot depend on anyone’s will” (Quas Primas) and the Syllabus condemnation of the error that “the ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil government” (Error 20), here applied to the internal governance of the Church by laypeople.
- The evolution of dogma: The entire premise of the synodal way is that doctrine can “develop” in response to “the signs of the times.” This is the Modernist heresy condemned by Pius X: “Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy… are merely modes of explanation and stages in the evolution of Christian consciousness” (Lamentabili, Prop. 54).
- The democratization of truth: The synodal model elevates the “sense of the faithful” (sensus fidelium) as a source of revelation parallel to, or even superior to, the hierarchical Magisterium. This is the condemned error that “the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Lamentabili, Prop. 6).
Wilmer’s role as an intermediary with Rome, his perceived “theological heft,” and his “independence of mind” are not virtues but marks of a skilled apostate. His election “could be interpreted as a doubling down on the synodal way,” which means a doubling down on the systematic dismantling of the Catholic Faith.
The Fruit of Apostasy: The Collapse of Hildesheim
The article provides statistical evidence of the spiritual devastation under Wilmer’s leadership in the Diocese of Hildesheim. From 2018 to 2024:
- Catholic population decreased from 593,360 to 508,073 (a loss of 85,287 souls, or 14.4%).
- Weekly Mass attendance plummeted from 45,000 (7.5% of Catholics) to 30,000 (5.8%), a 33.3% drop in absolute numbers and a 22.7% relative decrease in the percentage.
- Formal defections rose from 7,018 to 8,851 annually.
Wilmer’s response is not penance, prayer, or a return to traditional doctrine and practice, but a pragmatic plan to “reduce its portfolio of buildings roughly by half” and commission another abuse study. This is the managerial, corporate response of a bankrupt entity. Where is the call to mortification, to reparation, to the revival of the Forty Hours Devotion, to the restoration of the Thomistic synthesis in seminaries? It is absent. The silence on the supernatural—on the state of grace, the horror of mortal sin, the necessity of the Sacraments for salvation—is deafening and constitutes the gravest accusation. The article notes his “risk” in commissioning a study that might implicate him, presenting it as a sign of integrity. In reality, it is a public relations exercise within a system that has utterly lost the Catholic concept of hierarchical responsibility and the spiritual good of souls. The “good spirits” of the “faithful at the grassroots” he mentions are the spirits of a generation that has been catechized in the “errors of the age” condemned by Pius IX.
The German Bishops’ Conference: A Living Refutation of Quas Primas
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas on the Kingship of Christ is the definitive counter-message to everything Bishop Wilmer and the German bishops represent. The Pope wrote that the “plague” of his time was “the secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” which “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations.” He warned that when “God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The German bishops, under Wilmer, are the architects of this very secularism within the Church. They seek to make the Church a “dialogue partner” with the world, a “prophetic voice for all people” (as Wilmer says), rather than the sole dispenser of salvation and the authoritative teacher of all nations. This is the “indifferentism” and “latitudinarianism” condemned in the Syllabus (Errors 15-18). Wilmer’s speech at the 2025 German Protestant Church Congress (Kirchentag) is a scandalous participation in the false ecumenism that Pius IX called a “pest” (Syllabus, Introduction to Section IV). The German bishops’ conference, in choosing Wilmer, has chosen a leader who will accelerate their project of creating a “national church, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman pontiff” (Syllabus, Error 37)—a project that finds its ultimate expression in the “synodal conference” they seek to establish.
The Theological Bankruptcy of the “Bridge-Builder”
The article’s portrayal of Wilmer as a “bridge-builder” between ideological factions is a euphemism for a man who has no immutable principles. His theology, shaped by the Dehonians and Maurice Blondel (a philosopher whose personalism influenced Modernism), is a fluid, experiential religion. Blondel’s philosophy, which emphasizes “lived experience” over objective truth, was a key ingredient in the Modernist synthesis condemned by Pius X. Wilmer’s work represents the “false striving for novelty” that Pius X identified as leading to “the most grievous errors… concerning sacred sciences, the exposition of Holy Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith” (Lamentabili, Introduction). A “bridge-builder” in Catholic terms must build on the rock of Peter, with the immutable dogmas as the foundation. Wilmer builds on the sands of “dialogue,” “experience,” and “consensus,” precisely the errors Pius X condemned: “The Church listening cooperates… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Prop. 6). His bridge leads not to unity but to the abyss of doctrinal collapse.
Conclusion: A Call to Repudiation and Resistance
The election of Bishop Heiner Wilmer is a public, solemn act of apostasy by the German bishops’ conference of the conciliar sect. It is a deliberate choice of a leader whose profile—a member of an order with a tainted founder, a theologian of the “new theology,” a diocesan bishop presiding over catastrophic decline, a vocal proponent of the heretical “synodal way”—encapsulates the entire Modernist revolution. This event fulfills the prophecy of Pius X: the “synthesis of all errors” is now being administered by its most dedicated agents. The only Catholic response is the one Pius XI demanded in Quas Primas: the public, unyielding confession that “Jesus Christ is King,” and that His reign demands the total subjection of all human societies, including the German “church,” to His law and His Church. There is no peace, no justice, no “renewal” outside the Social Kingship of Christ. Bishop Wilmer and the German bishops have chosen the path of apostasy. The faithful are bound in conscience to repudiate their leadership, their “synodal way,” and their entire conciliar structure, and to cling solely to the immutable Faith of the pre-1958 Church, which alone possesses the means of salvation.
Source:
Who is the German bishops’ new leader? (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 24.02.2026