A hundred LGBT + Catholics, employed by the Church or engaged in their parish, came out Monday in Germany, denouncing the “discrimination and exclusion” they suffer and asking for “free access” to pastoral professions.
On the “#OutInChurch” site, they demand “a change in the discriminatory work code of the Catholic” Church and the removal of “degrading and excluding wording” in the regulations, as well as the end of a “system of dissimulation , double morality and dishonesty” that surrounds the LGBT+ issue in the Church.
“I don’t want to hide anymore”
Neither “sexual orientation or gender identity”, nor “commitment to a non-heterosexual relationship or marriage” should be “an obstacle to hiring or a reason for dismissal”, believe the faithful in a manifest.
“I don’t want to hide anymore”, testifies Uwe Grau, a homosexual priest in the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart (south), who is one of the dozens of lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, queer and non-binary people presented in a photo gallery, sometimes anonymized. “We are part of the Church,” says Raphaela Soden, queer and agender, who works in the diocese of Friborg (south-west).
Lively debates within the Church
The LGBT+ question is the subject of lively debate within the Church. Pope Francis is in line with the Catholic tradition on marriage – considered as the union between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation -, while believing that “God loves each of his children”.
He also repeatedly criticized “gender theory”, described as an “ideological project”, and approved in mid-March 2021 a note from the Vatican considering homosexuality as “a sin”, confirming the impossibility for homosexual couples to receive the sacrament of marriage.
More testimonies from German LGBT+ Catholics in the service of the Church will be broadcast Monday evening on public television as part of an investigative documentary entitled “As God Made Us”, which also aims to expose intimidation and discrimination of which they are victims.
The German Church accused of complicity in pedocrime
These initiatives come a few days after new accusations against the German Church in cases of pedocrime: an independent report severely implicated high dignitaries of the Church, including the former Pope Benedict XVI, accused of inaction in the face of pedophile priests in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Catholic religion remains the first confession in Germany, even if its faithful desert: they fell to 22.2 million in 2020, a fall of 2.5 million compared to 2010.