In Germany, several dozen LGBTQI+ Catholics have come out publicly to denounce the “discrimination and exclusion” suffered within the Church.
In total, more than a hundred German Catholics (priests, church employees or simple practitioners) publicly revealed their sexual orientation on Monday, January 24.
Together, they wish to denounce the “discrimination” they suffer and demand “free access” to pastoral professions.
On the Outinchurch Instagram page, they posted several demands, such as “a change to the Church’s discriminatory labor code” or the removal of “degrading and excluding language” in the regulations.
In a manifesto, the faithful said that neither “sexual orientation or gender identity” nor “commitment to a non-heterosexual relationship or marriage” should be “a barrier to employment or a reason dismissal.”
“speak on behalf of people who still live in fear”
“I’m gay and nobody knows it today. I would like something to change in relations within the Church,” Frank Kribber, chaplain at Lingen prison, told the daily Bild. “There are so many of us and the Church doesn’t want to see it.”
Like many, Uwe Grau, a homosexual priest in the diocese of Rotenburg-Stuttgart, “no longer wants [se] to hide.” For his part, Stephan Schwab, also a priest, chose to reveal his sexual identity on the site “because[’il] believe[t] and that[’il est] firmly convinced that[’il fait] good work even as a gay priest”.
For Marie Kortenbusch, a theology professor employed by the Church and secretly married to a woman for two years, it is “wonderful to now be able to speak on behalf of people who still live in fear”, she confided to Bild .
The Vatican still hostile to same-sex marriage
The signatories of the manifesto received, this Monday morning, the support of Stefan Hesse, Archbishop of Hamburg. “A Church in which one has to hide because of one’s sexual orientation cannot, in my opinion, be in the spirit of Jesus.” The religious even said he was in favor of an evolution of “sexual morality and the labor law of the Church.”
This event comes as the Vatican recently refuted the “gender theory”, described as an “ideological project” by Pope Francis. The latter even approved, in March 2021, a note from the Vatican considering homosexuality as “a sin”, thus confirming the impossibility for homosexual couples to receive the sacrament of marriage.
This Monday evening, several testimonies from German LGBTQI+ Catholics will be broadcast on public television, as part of an investigative documentary entitled “As God created us”. It also aims to denounce the intimidation and discrimination suffered by German Catholics.