Central Committee of German Catholics

Central Committee of German Catholics
Formation3 October 1848; 176 years ago (1848-10-03)
Region served
Germany
Membership
c. 230
President
Irme Stetter-Karp
Parent organization
Catholic Church in Germany
Websitehttp://www.zdk.de/

The Central Committee of German Catholics (German: Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken, ZdK) is a lay body comprising representatives of various Catholic organisations in Germany. They organise the Catholic Days in Germany. The organisation is headquartered in Berlin.

Its predecessor, the Catholic Society of Germany (German: Katholische Verein Deutschlands), was founded in 1848 by Charles, 6th Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, who served as its first President. In 1952, it was renamed the Central Committee of German Catholics. In 2000 a conservative organization, the Forum of German Catholics, was founded in opposition to the committee.

In May 2015, the Central Committee of German Catholics voted in favour of blessing of same-sex unions in Christian churches.[1]

Together with the German Bishops' Conference, the Central Committee of German Catholics organized the Synodal Way from 2019 to 2023, which was supposed to find solutions for the structural issues that made the sexual abuse of minors in the Church possible.