WASHINGTON (CNS): “I believe the hour has come to deeply commit ourselves to open the way of the Church to renewal and reform,” Reinhard Cardinal Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, said in his homily at New Year’s Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady.
 
Cardinal Marx said the Church must, “in light of the failure” surrounding the clergy sex abuse crisis, modify tradition in response to changing modern times.
 

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis has asked Reinhard Cardinal Marx, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, to come to Rome to discuss pastoral guidelines for possibly allowing some non-Catholics married to Catholics to receive the Eucharist, Matthias Kopp, the conference spokesperson said on April 19.
 

BERLIN (CNS): The German Bishops’ Conference continues to develop its recent decision to allow non-Catholic spouses in mixed denomination marriages to receive Communion in limited cases.
 
The document, primarily addressed to pastors, contains specific guidance about whether Communion is possible in particular cases for married couples of different Christian denominations. 
 

MUNICH (SE): The archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Cardinal Marx, told Augsburger Allgemeine that the Church should not get too excited over a new law passed by the Bundestag on June 30 recognising same-sex marriage, but rather review with disgust its own record on not opposing the prosecution of homosexuals.
 
He said during the July 14 interview with the German magazine that the law in Germany, which made homosexuality a crime, was not rescinded until 1994 and that Catholic people as a Church, did not concern themselves with it.