#OutInChurch: 125 Catholics come out as part of the LGBTIQ+ community

#OutInChruch
125 Catholics come out as part of the LGBTIQ+ community

In the meantime, it is no longer a rough wind that shakes the walls of the Catholic Church, it is a whole hurricane low. Just a few days ago, a new report, several thousand pages long, appeared about the shocking system of the everyday covering-up of sexual offenses in the Catholic Church. The law firm Westphal Spilker Wastl identified 235 alleged perpetrators in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

The accusations against the Catholic Church continue

The lawyers acted as external examiners and worked their way through dozens of personnel files, meeting minutes and estate holdings from the years 1945 to 2019. They interviewed 56 contemporary witnesses and were able to identify a total of 247 male and 182 female victims – most of them were children and young people at the time of the crime. The entire abuse report comprises 1900 pages. Even Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is involved in the lack of processing of abuse cases – he is accused of misconduct in four cases.

The Catholic Church is a master of cover-up, denial and silence. However, more and more members within the church are breaking this silence. While it was primarily the women who set an example for equality with the Maria 2.0 initiative, it is now the #OutInChurch campaign.

With the #OutInChurch campaign, 125 church members who belong to the LGBTIQ+ community came out

A total of 125 people dared to go public with the start of the campaign and came out as part of the LGBTIQ+ community. All of them work on a voluntary or full-time basis for the Catholic Church, including religious, pastoral assistants or religious educators.

But the Vatican’s previous view is unbroken: homosexuality does not serve “God’s plan”, so the Catholic Church not only rejects marriage ceremonies, but also the blessing of homosexual couples. “The Roman Catholic Church writes that God cannot bless sin,” SRF correspondent Franco Battel reported from Rome in March.

Sexual identity can mean job loss in the Catholic Church

In the ranks of the Catholic Church, sexual identity is still a criterion for exclusion from the community and for the loss of a job. “The community officer who wants to marry her girlfriend loses her job,” said Pastor Bernd Mönkebüscher from Hamm to the “Deutsche Presseagentur”. It is impossible for this to remain the case in 2022.

The campaign stands “for a church without fear”. The church should take responsibility for the human rights of people from the queer community worldwide, rather than excluding them. To do this, she would have to revise “defamatory and outdated statements” on sexuality and gender on the basis of human scientific and theological findings.

The network called on all LGBTIQ+ people to join them

The network calls on all LGBTIQ+ people who work full-time and on a voluntary basis for the Catholic Church to join the initiative. They appeal to the bishops to publicly declare their support for the manifesto. Pastor Bernd Mönkebüscher, who had already helped initiate blessing services for homosexual couples nationwide in 2021, told the dpa that the campaign was inspired by the coming out of the 185 actors last year.

The declaration was signed by the Presidium of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the Catholic German Women’s Association (KDFB), the Catholic Women’s Association Germany (kfd), the Forum of Catholic Female Theologians Agenda, the Association of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ) and the Working Group of Catholic University Communities (AKH).

Support came from politicians, celebrities and from within the church itself

The action was cheered and celebrated in the first few hours. Sven Lehmann (Greens), the Federal Government Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity, tweeted: “What courage!” The Archdiocese of Hamburg published a quote from Archbishop Dr. Stefan Hess: “A church in which one has to hide because of one’s sexual orientation cannot, in my opinion, be in the spirit of Jesus.”

Comedian Caroline Kebekus told dpa: “This great initiative hit me so hard.” Kebekus has been campaigning for change in the Catholic Church for a long time and repeatedly addresses the abuses in their shows. “How many people work for the church and have to live in constant fear of being sanctioned by it leaves you stunned again,” the comedian continued.

The air around the “saints” at the top is getting thinner and thinner, and they probably won’t be able to withstand the storm much longer. The resignations from the church show the rejection clearly. Now would be a good time to take the step into our modern society, otherwise the many churchmen in their outdated status roles will lose touch with reality.

Sources used: zeit.de, spiegel.de westphal-spiker.de

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Bridget