ROME — The Chairman of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, has urged the Catholic Church to change its teaching on sexual morality, insisting that gay sex does not harm a person’s relationship with God.
Same-sex relations are okay, Bishop Bätzing told the German magazine Bunte in its March 4 issue, “as long as they are carried out with loyalty and responsibility.”
“It doesn’t affect one’s relationship with God,” the bishop added.
Bätzing went on to say that how a person lives their personal intimacy “is none of my business.”
In the interview, the Limburg bishop asserted that no one follows Church teaching on sexuality anymore — which only allows sex in marriage — and therefore “we have to partially change the catechism. Sexuality is a gift from God. It’s not a sin.”
Last year Bishop Bätzing made headlines when he publicly opposed a Vatican declaration forbidding the blessing of same-sex couples.
“I believe that we have to assess homosexuality and lived partnerships outside of marriage differently,” said Bätzing at the time. “We can no longer proceed solely from natural law, but have to think much more in terms of care and personal responsibility for one another.”
“In this regard, I would like to see a further development of Catholic teaching on sexual ethics,” the bishop said.
Bätzing said that people in homosexual relationships want the blessing of the Church, and the Church must “address this desire.”
“We can no longer answer these questions simply with a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ That is not possible,” he said.
“I understand the negative opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it reflects the state of Church teaching,” he said. “But that doesn’t help, because there has long been a pastoral development that goes beyond that.”
“And that means change is coming,” he declared.
In March 2021, the Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF) issued a statement declaring that the Church has no authority to bless homosexual unions, noting that God Himself “does not and cannot bless sin.”
Blessings require both “the right intention of those who participate” and “that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,” stated the text, published with the express approval of Pope Francis.
“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” it read, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”