Church Should Apologize to Gay People, Says Top Adviser to Pope Francis

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Cardinal Reinhard Marx

The Catholic Church should apologize to lesbian and gay people for the harm it has caused to them, said a top cardinal and close advisor to Pope Francis.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, speaking to the Irish Times after his address at a Dublin conference, said:

” ‘The history of homosexuals in our societies is a very bad history because we’ve done a lot to marginalise [them]. . .As church and society, we’ve also to say “sorry, sorry.”

“Until ‘very recently’, the church, but also society at large, had been ‘very negative about gay people . . .it was the whole society. It was a scandal and terrible.’ “

Marx was in Dublin at Trinity College for the Loyola Institute’s conference, “The Role of Church in a Pluralist Society: Good Riddance or Good Influence?” He called for the church to engage positively with the world, acknowledging historical periods when “Christian faith wasn’t on the right side” of societal developments.

Addressing specifically civil rights for lesbian and gay people, the cardinal said governments should “make regulations for homosexuals so they have equal rights or nearly equal.” He explained his “nearly equal” qualification is because church teaching opposes marriage equality, describing heterosexual marriage as a “special relationship.” But Marx followed up by affirming the legal recognition of same-gender relationships, reported Catholic Philly:

” ‘We have our moral position [on marriage] and that is clear but the secular state has to regulate these [same-gender] partnerships and to bring them to a just position.’ “

Marx, who is a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis, also commented about the two-year Synod on the Family process. According to the Irish Times, he expressed shock that some bishops could dismiss the commitment and service revealed in same-gender relationships:

” ‘We have to respect the decisions of people. We have to respect also, as I said in the first synod on the family, some were shocked but I think it’s normal, you cannot say that a relationship between a man and a man and they are faithful [that] that is nothing, that has no worth.’ “

Marx, the president of the Commission of the Bishops Conferences of the European Community, has a generally supportive record on LGBT issues in the church. Most recently, he attended Germany’s Catholic Day gathering which draws more than 30,000 people and, for the first time, this year welcomed LGBT organizations.

During the 2015 Ordinary Synod of Bishops, Bondings 2.0’s Francis DeBernardo, who covered the meeting from Rome, described Marx as “one of the strongest pro-gay voices.” The German working group which he moderated acknowledged the harm that “hard and merciless attitudes” in the church have harmed marginalized communities that include gay people and urged bishops to seek forgiveness.

In interviews during and after the Synod, Marx said God would not focus solely on a person’s sexual orientation, but on whether people in same-gender relationships were “faithful, care for one another and intend to stay together for life.” The church must begin its sexual ethics from “love, fidelity and the search for a life-long relationship” and not merely see a person “from only one point of view, without seeing the whole situation of a person.”

Cardinal Marx’s record on LGBT issues is not entirely positive. He maintains a heteronormative defense of marriage and, in response to the lay-led Central Committee of German Catholics’ call for the church to bless same-gender partnerships, called some of their proposals “theologically unacceptable.

His latest remarks in Ireland are, nonetheless, a positive and welcome development. An apology by the Catholic Church for its part in discrimination and violence that LGBT people have faced would be a major step toward reconciliation.  This step would be especially strong if it came from Pope Francis, whose condolences after the massacre in Orlando would not acknowledge the LGBT victims targeted, just as he neglected LGBT issues during his 2015 trip to two nations in Africa which criminalize homosexuality. Church leaders should listen to Cardinal Marx’s wisdom and consider how their words and actions could advance reconciliation with LGBT people and their families.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

 

19 replies
  1. Terence Weldon
    Terence Weldon says:

    We’re going to hear more about apologies and calls for apologies to lesbian and gay Catholics for past wrongs to lesbian and gay people. That’s good news.

    What would be better, if we could also hear apologies for wrongs to transgender people – and for continuing harms done to LGBT people by the Church in many parts of the world in its pastoral practice, and by the Church itself for some elements of its teaching and language.

    Reply
  2. bjmonda
    bjmonda says:

    If They really mean to do something positive it will take more than a few “I’m sorrys”. They would actually change their doctrine and the catechism. They shouldn’t say, “Gee I’m so sorry YOU hurt”. It needs to be, “I am sorry and I will STOP hurting you”.

    Reply
  3. David Biviano
    David Biviano says:

    Apologies, sure. But if it is sincere, it is accompanied by rescinding Ratzinger’s document regarding “objectively disordered” and “intrinsically inclined towards evil”. It would also identify the actions the church has taken in oppressing LGBT such as the banning of Dignity from pastoral care; the major force along with the Mormon’s in opposing same-sex marriage in the U.S.; the banning of theologians who dared explore developments in the scriptural and theological understanding of homosexuality; the silencing of those who sought to end the church’s oppression of LGBT catholics; and acknowledgement of those of us who had to leave the church to be safe, to be whole, to be holy, to be saved from the oppressors.

    Reply
  4. Friends
    Friends says:

    I certainly agree with David Biviano’s comments above. However, on the lighter side, I would note that Cardinal Marx is a dead ringer for “Friar Tuck” — just as he was portrayed in the 1950s TV series, “The Adventures Of Robin Hood”! Friar Tuck was, of course, a member of the band of outlaws who assisted Robin Hood in his quest for social justice, standing against the tyrannical excesses of an aloof monarchy. Perhaps “What goes around comes around again” — all of these centuries later!

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] At the Synod on the Family, Koch said the German contingent sought to advance the conversation on homosexuality as much as possible despite resistance from other regions. The German-speaking group of bishops at the synod stated that the church should apologize to people it has harmed, including lesbian and gay people. Cardinal Marx has also said the church should apologize. […]

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  5. […] Catholic Church Should Apologize to Gay People, Says Top Adviser to Pope Francis (Bondings 2.0) […]

  6. […] days ago, Bondings 2.0 reported on Munich’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s call for an apology by the Church to lesbian and […]

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