In 2018, a study on sexual abuse in the German Catholic Church was published. In March 2019, the bishops responded with a unanimous decision for a verbindlichen Synodalen Weg, a binding synodal path. The bishops’ conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics, the lay organization, shared responsibility for it. In its assembly of more than 200 members, lay members voted with full rights alongside the bishops. A decision also needed a two-thirds majority of the bishops. It met five times in Frankfurt between 2020 and 2023. Rome objected. In July 2022, the Holy See declared that the Synodal Path was nicht befugt, not authorized, to oblige bishops and the faithful to accept new forms of church government.