Two German Bishops Strongly Criticize Church’s Negative Approach to LGBTQ+ Issues

Two German bishops made strong statements criticizing the Catholic Church’s traditional approach LGBTQ+ issues in a recent interview published in a German theological journal.

Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers

Katholische.de reports that Bishops Heinrich Timmerevers of Dresden and Ludger Schepers of Essen gave a joint interview entitled “Reality is more important than the idea” in an issue of Herder Therma ” focused on the theme “Visibly recognized: Diversity of sexual identities.” 

Timmerevers acknowledged that the church’s positions on sexual orientation and gender identity fail to take into account scientific knowledge of human development. He recounted how conversing with a noted expert changed his understanding of sexual orientation:

“There’s a certain age—he spoke of 13 to 16—where an orientation is essentially fixed. And you can’t change it. That’s the way it is, a fact.” 

The bishop pondered how then, “if at all”, the church could discuss grave sin in relation to sexual orientation. As for gender, the Dresden bishop said that the church’s blanket categorization of transgender experience and gender transition as entirely ideological was an inadequate response to an anthropological phenomenon. Again, Timmerevers emphasized the importance of the church accounting for scientific understanding:

“This requires that we engage in scientific debate. This also means that this debate is not an ideology-driven science, but rather a genuine struggle for knowledge and truth. We should face this process of struggle. I find it difficult when, with regard to the issue of gender, the immediate response is: That’s ideology.”

In the ecclesiastical context, Timmerevers identified unique challenges to LGBTQ+ affirmation, emphasizing that the church needs a more comprehensive approach to sexuality and gender. He posed the following questions;

“How can all this be brought together? How can one magisterium accomplish this for everyone? How can church doctrine be further developed in a way that incorporates new human scientific insights and does not ignore the cultural perspective?”

The bishop’s preliminary solution to these challenges was to quote  the ultimate sentence of canon law which calls the salvation of souls the “supreme law in the Church,”as a possible “key to an appropriate theological hermeneutics.”

Bishop Ludger Schepers

Bishop Schepers, who is also the German bishops’ conference’s liaison to the LGBTQ+ community, criticized the negative parameters of Catholic sexual ethics, as well as fundamentalist reading of scripture which forms the bedrock for Catholic anthropology. Rather than merely providing lists of what not to do sexually, theology should “also tell us how to do it; what successful sexuality before marriage can look like, not just with prohibitions.”

While giving the biblical creation story due deference as revealed and essential, the Essen bishop  warned against its misapplication:

“The lasting historical basic statement is: God created everything; truly created everything—heaven and earth. That is the constant in these biblical statements. And then all human beings belong to this: male, female, and everything in between, what we don’t yet know, what new discoveries reveal.” 

Both Bishops Timmerevers and Schepers have long pro-LGBTQ+ records, which are covered at length in the Bondings 2.0 archive. Read about Timmerever’s role in pro-LGBTQ+ Catholic school policies, his co-authoring of a positive book entitled Catholic and Queer, and his commitment to blessing same-gender couples. Read about Schepper’s bold criticism of Cardinal Gerhard Müller who was Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Faith under Pope Benedict XVI, his criticism of President Donald Trump’s anti-trans policies, and his advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ employees of Catholic institutions. 

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, August 19, 2025