“Theological relapse”

Volker Beck © dpa

The spokesman on religious policy for the Green Party's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Beck, has accused Pope Francis of "theological backsliding" in view of his position on equal rights for registered civil partnerships.

Earlier, the auxiliary bishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, reported that Francis had described to him in a private audience a corresponding legislative project in Malta as an "anthropological step backward".

Beck assessed this statement as "all the more regrettable because many had hoped for more respect for lesbians and gays by the church from the new pope". The church should "stop asking the secular legislature, which is obliged to the constitutional imperatives of human dignity, freedom and equality, directly or indirectly, to adopt the sexual doctrine of the church, which discriminates against homosexuals," the Green politician demanded.

Reference to Dignitatis humanae

He referred to the Council's "central writing on freedom of faith (Dignitatis humanae)," which emphasizes the freedom of conscience of those who did not or did not want to follow the teachings of Rome. According to Beck, Rome breaks with this position "if it continues to call on governments or parliaments to discriminate against homosexuals". Family law is "a secular thing," he added, echoing a phrase used by reformer Martin Luther on the institution of marriage.

Already as archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2010, the current pope had called the legal equality of homosexual civil partnerships an "anthropological step backward". He was one of the staunch opponents of a corresponding law in Argentina.

On the flight back from World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Francis had said, "If someone is homosexual, seeks God and is of good will, who am I to judge him."This statement had aroused expectations among some observers that the Pope might change the Church's negative attitude toward practiced homosexuality.

In recent years, Volker Beck has repeatedly spoken out as a critic of the Catholic Church, especially with regard to the Church's treatment of homosexuals. He also calls for a fundamental reform of state church law, which would also affect church labor law, for example. During the abuse scandal, Beck had called for clear consequences from the Church. Recently he had come under criticism because of the accusation of an insufficient clarification of pedophilic tendencies within the Greens themselves.

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