Responses to the Vatican’s questions about the family shows Church teaching on sexual morality must change, a German bishop says.
Bishop Stephen Ackermann of Trier said the responses show Church teachings in this area are “repressive” and “remote from life” for most Catholics.
In a German publication, Bishop Ackermann said it is also no longer tenable to declare that every kind of cohabitation before marriage was a grievous sin.
He also said “the difference between natural and artificial birth control is somehow artificial”.
“No one understands it I fear,” Bishop Ackermann said.
He also said the Church could no longer hold that homosexuality is unnatural.
While the church must “hold fast” to the uniqueness of marriage between a man and a woman, it could not just ignore registered same-sex unions where the couples had promised to be faithful to and responsible for one another, he added.
Bishop Ackermann was sharply criticised by Bishops Heinz Josef Algermissen of Fulda and Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg.
“Truth is not something that can be adjusted,” Bishop Algermissen said.
But he admitted “We bishops obviously have a problem”.
“We have clearly not succeeded in putting across Catholic sexual ethics and its positive concept of the human being.”
Bishop Zdarsa said that the catechism was “the yardstick for valid Catholic teaching”.
But Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg defended Bishop Ackermann.
“We must struggle to find fair, responsible and life-serving solutions in the spirit of Jesus Christ,” he said.
“It is not helpful to keep on repeating prohibitions or reservations,” Bishop Feige added.
A report published in February by the German and Swiss bishops’ conferences on the responses to the Vatican questions showed most respondents think the Church’s sexual morality is unrealistic.
Sources
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