ROME — German Cardinal Reinhard Marx celebrated a Mass Sunday to commemorate “20 years of queer worship and pastoral care” in Munich, Germany.
“I desire an inclusive Church, a Church that includes all who want to walk the way of Jesus,” said Cardinal Marx, the archbishop of Munich and an adviser to Pope Francis.
According to the archdiocesan website, the cardinal was preaching to a “queer congregation.”
In his homily, Marx insisted that Jesus himself was opposed to “those who exclude” but rather “would like to invite everyone with the primacy of love!”
“The kingdom of God is to discover that God is love — in all its dimensions,” said Marx, which includes “the sexual dimension.”
“All human relationships must be characterized by the primacy of love. Then they can be accepted by God,” he added.
A synodal church means being open, learning and always setting out anew in faith, in the search for the “God’s possibilities” and “in the question of what we have to say about sexuality and what we have to say about human relationships.”
In this April 19, 2019, file photo, a gay pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Marx went on to say that discrimination has not ended, as is shown by the fact that criticisms of the homosexual community can be heard even from Christians. “I am shocked that it is not over,” Marx said. Everyone can have his own convictions, “but as a bishop, I cannot question the recognition and primacy of love.”
Last week, the president of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, declared that the Catholic Church must 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 asserted that how a person lives their personal intimacy “is none of my business.”
No one follows Church teaching on sexuality anymore, the bishop said, and so “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.”
Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he “desires an inclusive Church, a Church that includes all who want to walk the way of Jesus.” (SVEN HOPPE/AFP/Getty Images)
“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.
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.”
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