“No room for maneuver”

adminonJanuary 19, 2022January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Homosexual couple © Sven Hoppe

Cologne Auxiliary Bishop Dominikus Schwaderlapp sees no room for Catholic blessing of homosexual couples. He commented accordingly to the Catholic weekly newspaper "Die Tagespost" in Wurzburg.

Individuals with a homosexual orientation could be blessed, but not relationships that included sexual communion outside of marriage, Schwaderlapp said. According to Catholic doctrine, the practice of sexuality is reserved for marriage, which can only be entered into by a man and a woman.

The Osnabruck bishop Franz-Josef Bode had suggested in January in a newspaper interview to think about blessing celebrations for same-sex couples. However, a confusion with a wedding ceremony had to be excluded. According to Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a commission of the German Bishops' Conference is currently looking into these questions.

Catholic lay organizations such as the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) are in favor of Bode's move, but it has already drawn disapproving voices in the bishops' conference.

Pastoral accompaniment of people

Schwaderlapp said that "in the heated debates" the aspect of the pastoral care of people is much too neglected. Too often people who are looking for it "run into closed doors and closed hearts", this worries him. Accompaniment requires mutual respect. It does not mean to have a consensus in all points with the people concerned. He says this is a great challenge for the church. "People who cannot share the teaching of the Catholic Church on all points, we must not leave hanging."

How does ecumenism continue to develop? According to Catholic theologian Dorothea Sattler, she is currently experiencing a "standstill that need not be". The theologian from Munster criticizes the attitude of the Roman Catholic side.

On the one hand, there is a broad awareness and appreciation that "only in the community of all Christians can we see the fullness of God's gifts," Sattler said in an interview with the magazine "Christ in der Gegenwart. At the same time, he said, it perceives polarization within the denominational communities, for example, in the treatment of women or same-sex partnerships. Since the interview was conducted beforehand, Sattler does not address the current debate on assisted suicide.

The theologian criticized that on the Roman Catholic side there is currently "little willingness to take on board the findings of theology". Instead, one retreats to positions that one has known for years are no longer tenable, for example, on the question of apostolic succession in the ministry."

Rejection of the Vatican

She also referred to the Vatican's objections to the paper "Together at the Lord's Table" by the Ecumenical Working Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians. In the paper, the theologians advocate mutual participation in Eucharist and Lord's Supper celebrations of the respective other denomination. The Vatican's refusal to do so shows that "great efforts are still needed in the reception of ecumenical insights," Sattler said.

Referring to the excommunication of Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) 500 years ago, the theologian said that such an exclusion from the church community was lifted with death. A formal step to lift the exclusion is therefore not necessary.

Nor do such "painful memories" heal by a legal act alone. Rather, what is needed is a comprehensive work of remembrance. Looking at individual events does not help. "We have to tell the whole story, including the interactions," the theologian said. Luther, for example, had also acted impulsively, not taking up offers of discussion from Rome and thus contributing to the dramatization of the situation.

Ukraine's Roman Catholic bishops' conference criticizes German push for church blessing of same-sex couples. Homosexual acts are sinful according to Church teaching, says Archbishop Mokrzycki.

Media reports that some German bishops support such blessings have caused "sadness, pain and confusion" among many Catholics as well as Christians of other denominations, Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv, president of the bishops' conference, said over the weekend. Homosexual acts are sinful according to church teaching and deprive people of "sanctifying grace".

Reaction to book published in November

Mokrzycki encouraged prayer for the Church in Germany and "its bishops, who are under strong ideological prere, so that they may overcome difficulties with courage and preserve the treasure of faith without compromise". The archbishop was reacting to the book published at the end of November by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur katholische Familienbildung (akf), "Paare.Rites.Church. When a Catholic wedding ceremony is not possible: liturgical examples collected and commented on".

Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx and the bishops of Mainz and Osnabruck, Peter Kohlgraf and Franz-Josef Bode, among others, would support a blessing of homosexual couples, Mokrzycki said. People "with homosexual tendencies" should be treated with respect and helped pastorally and, if necessary, psychologically, he advises.

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