144 theologians confront hierarchy | National Catholic Reporter

144 theologians confront hierarchy National Catholic Reporter Almost one third of the Catholic theologians, including signatories from Germany, Switzerland and Austria have expressed that "in our roles as theology professors, we can no longer remain silent." They clamored for the  many needs for reform in the Church hierarchy, among those are the demands for more democracy in the Catholic Church, the specific responses to the 2010 crisis and the consequential diminishing credibility of the church and the exit of many catholics from the Catholic Church not so recently. In their open letter, they expressed that "we feel we have something to contribute to a new beginning." Among these protesters are the prominent Catholic religious scholars such as Peter Hünermann and Dietmar Mieth, both of the Catholic Theological Faculty of Tübingen University, Germany, and younger scholars such as Judith Könemann from the Rhineland university city of Münster.