The recent Vatican objection to the progress of the Synodal Path reform project is a disturbing document.
This is less due to the atypical clarity that a no should really be a no.
Rather because, incidentally, it becomes apparent why Pope Francis is sticking to Archbishop Woelki, despite all the disaster reports from the Archdiocese of Cologne.
For what would an intra-bishop Fronde be without a veritable cardinal at the top?
In terms of protocol, Woelki is way above the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Bishop Bätzing of Limburg, and does not have to deign to ask him the questions that people in Rome prefer to hear, because then the "answer" letter can finally be sent , which has been ready for a long time.
Most disturbing is the fact that the pope and three cardinals are using all their authority to insist on compliance with a canon law that is as flexible as a rubber hose in their hands but has proved to be a corset in this country.
And all this in order to prevent a seventy-strong committee composed according to all the rules of professional, association, council, professional group and gender proportional representation and thus, according to all experience, being another time-consuming, meaningless nonsense, as is customary in the Church.