Rainbow flags and thoughtful tones

Rainbow flags and thoughtful tones

Homosexual couple with rainbow flag © Angyalosi Beata (shutterstock)

In many Catholic parishes, gay and lesbian couples were also blessed as part of the "Love Wins" initiative. The action caused a stir. And the next "excitement" is already announced.

"We have been guilty of same-sex lovers," says pastor Bernd Monkebuscher Monday evening in Hamm about the Catholic Church's treatment of homosexuals.

"For centuries we have discriminated against them, rejected them, relegated them to niches and sidelines, kept them out of the public eye and away from offices, in many places destroyed their lives, mentally and physically."

The clergyman is one of those who want to change something about it. Together with others, he launched the "Love Wins" campaign, which offers blessing services for lovers these days.

First conclusion

A spontaneous reaction to the Vatican's No to the blessing of homosexual couples and a "grassroots" impulse unexpectedly gave rise to a large movement, the initiators' first conclusion reads. Especially in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, rainbow flags flutter in front of houses of worship as a symbol of the lesbian and gay movement, something like a spirit of optimism is in the air.

A lesbian couple from Bonn, who came to the parish of Christ's Resurrection in Cologne-Lindenthal on Sunday, said it was something special to have been invited. In the church of St. Martin in Geldern in the Lower Rhine region, Pastor Christian Olding already celebrated a blessing service last week.

Among the participants: Holger and Lennart Woltering, married in a civil ceremony since 2017, both active as singers in the Geldern church congregation. "All the emotions came up for me like at the wedding," says 30-year-old Holger after the blessing: "With tingling in the stomach. Madness."

If the Vatican has its way, a Catholic chaplain like Olding may not bless a homosexual partnership – or, to be more precise, he can't. In mid-March, the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had said the Catholic Church did not have the authority to bless same-sex unions. Because these include sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman, it wrote in justification. God bless sinful people, but not sin.

Disciplinary consequences?

Now the question is what happens next. Olding and his colleagues are unlikely to face disciplinary consequences. There have been no announcements to that effect from the bishops in charge of it so far. Arguably, however, the president of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Batzing, criticized the blessing services in the run-up to the event. Worship services would have "their own theological dignity and pastoral significance. They are not suitable as an instrument for church-political manifestations or protest actions".

But criticism has also been formulated, for example, by Maria 1.0, a group of conservative Catholics. Believers would be unsettled and forced "to be loyal either to the local bishop, who may approve of these blessings, or to the pope". The Mainz moral theologian Stephan Goertz, on the other hand, ames that "Love Wins" will lead to an intensification of the debate.

Possibly, however, internal church "rifts" would also be deepened.

Topic at oKT and Synodal Way?

It is possible that Catholic sexual morality in general and the treatment of gay and lesbian couples in particular will also play a role at the Ecumenical Church Day starting on Thursday.

The topic is certainly on the agenda of the Synodal Way to the Future of the Church, which was launched by the bishops and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK).

And while the Cologne rockers Peter and Stephan Brings performed their song "Liebe gewinnt" ("Love Wins") in Hamm, which they had reied in a "Rainbow Edition" for the nationwide campaign, the next inner-Catholic uproar is already just around the corner.

Preacher's Day is just around the corner

The Catholic Women's Community of Germany (kfd) is calling for the second time on 17. May for a nationwide preacher's day.

The action, in which twelve women in twelve different places promote a gender-equal church, takes place on 17. According to the Ecumenical Encyclopedia of the Saints, this is the feast day of the apostle Junia.

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Christina Cherry
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