A new lay initiative in Germany is stepping into the spotlight with a clear mission, to push back against the direction of the German Synodal Way and defend Catholic teaching without apology. Pro Fide Ecclesiae, co-founded by Bishop Marian Eleganti, says it wants to give faithful Catholics a real voice after years of feeling sidelined in church and media circles.
The group was launched in Offenbach am Main and brings together Catholics from inside Germany, Germans living abroad, and believers with close ties to the country. Its members say they are not some tiny fringe hiding in the pews, but ordinary Catholics who have become strangely easy to ignore whenever official conversations about the Church in Germany get underway.
At the center of the effort is a simple complaint: too many Catholics who value traditional doctrine feel shut out by the big institutional players. Pro Fide Ecclesiae says it exists because the Central Committee of German Catholics and the German Bishops’ Conference do not speak for everyone, especially those who reject the theological drift that has become tied to the Synodal Way.
The association is open to both laypeople and clergy, though it identifies itself canonically as a lay movement. That matters to the founders because they want the group to stand on the ground of the Church’s own teaching on the apostolate of the laity, not as some outside protest movement trying to reinvent Catholic identity from scratch.
Bishop Eleganti has been blunt about why he joined the project. He framed the new group as a response to confusion and distortion, saying: “We want to defend the faith against heretical interpretations and distortions.”
Thommy Schott, the attorney elected as chairman, has taken aim at the broader culture inside the German Church, especially after the recent Katholikentag in Würzburg. He pointed to the event as a snapshot of how far things have moved from traditional Catholic life, with displays that many believers saw as openly provocative and out of step with the faith.
Schott argued that the problem is not just bad optics, but a deeper misunderstanding of what Catholicism is supposed to mean. In his view, the language used by reform-minded leaders has muddied the waters so thoroughly that many people now confuse novelty with truth and mistake pressure from activist circles for authentic doctrine.
He said the media has made things worse by failing to report clearly and instead reinforcing a single ideological angle. That, he believes, has helped normalize ideas such as the end of priestly celibacy, women’s ordination, and a sexual ethic that breaks with Sacred Scripture, all while pretending these demands belong inside Catholicism.
The founders see the stakes as bigger than one country or one set of church debates. Schott warned that if Germany drifts into schism, the damage would not stop at the border because the Catholic Church is one, and what happens in one national church can ripple outward fast.
That sense of urgency is what gives the new association its edge. Pro Fide Ecclesiae says it wants to build a visible counterweight to the current mood, a place where Catholics who still trust the Church’s inherited teaching can speak plainly, organize openly, and resist being pushed to the margins.
The message from the group is not subtle, and it is not trying to be. Its leaders say the old faith still has plenty of defenders, and they are betting that many Catholics who have felt isolated are ready to step out of the shadows and make themselves heard.
