Following demands for an apology and a threat he might “file an official complaint with the Holy Father,” the German Bishops’ Conference president met with a Vatican cardinal in Rome this week. German Bishop Georg Bätzing sat down with Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch on Oct. 4 to clear the air over what Bätzing had called a “totally unacceptable gaffe” by the Vatican cardinal, who is president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Koch had compared current secular accommodations in Germany to the Nazi period.