Even in the Catholic Church, there are people heeding the call of modernity and sanity:
One third of the Catholic theology professors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have signed a declaration calling for women’s ordination and lamenting “traditionalism” in the liturgy.
The 144 signatories note that the last year has been one of “unprecedented crisis” for the Church in Germany because of the sexual abuse scandal. Referring ten times to “freedom”– including “the freedom of the Gospel message,” “the biblical message of freedom,” and “freedom of conscience”– the signatories call for married priests, women’s ordination, and lay participation in the election of bishops and priests. The theologians also urge Church leaders “not to exclude” those who have remarried and those in homosexual partnerships.
It’s only a third of them, but even that is a significant number, I think.
The German Church has tended to think way ahead of the rest of the church over the past three or so decades. Nice to see the support but the rest of the haters in the hierarchy are unlikely to listen. Women and gays are inferior and disordered but pedophiles are just great.
As a practicing Roman Catholic, I am heartened to hear this and I am in complete agreement. This is the voice of the true Church, not the hierarchy or Bill Donahue.
[...] German Catholic Theologians Call for Church to Ordain Women, Supports Gays. Read more [...]
The German Church has tended to think way ahead of the rest of the church……except for ratzinger, and since he’s the Führer, the voices of rationality and real Christian compassion will fall on deaf ears.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Pope.
I wont go anywhere….the Catholic cult is beyond hope.
Nick, I admire the desire to keep the faith, but, if you are gay, the Roman Catholic church is not a real choice for you. Sorry. Thats not being hateful, just an observation of the official stances and way its always gonna be, a few good hearted and thinking Germans (how often does one get to say that sentence?) aside.
Episcopal, Evangelical Lutherarn, United Church of Christ, all are at least as close, or closer, to a true understanding of God than the Roman church, and welcome gay people as we are. Why anyone wants to belong to a denomination like the Roman Catholics who say we are “intrinsicly disordered” when they are gay is..bewildering.
pardon…”IT” not I, wont go anywhere in the above post
I’ve never understood why women can’t be priests. Aren’t they supposed to be celibate (all evidence to the contrary)? So what difference does gender make, exactly.
Or to put it another way, why should it matter what equipment you have if you’re not allowed toplay the game anyway?
Gene, you’re right. The Catholic Church’s “official” position is at odds with LGBT rights. However, I would not say that it is “beyond hope.” It is the aging and outdated hierarchy that keeps up the antagonism with the LGBT community. I, like most Catholics, don’t listen to them on anything. In my experience it is the parish priests, religious, deacons, and lay leaders who emobdy the true meaning of the Church and echo the sentiments of these German thologians. That is the “real” Church I have faith in, not some College of Cardinals in Rome who have never worked with the common Catholic facing the daily struggles of life and came to their positions by way of a life spent in a library studying canon law (That’s right, I’m looking at you, Archbishop Raymond Burke). It is in the local parishes who are typically LGBT supportive that you will find the future of the Church, not the pedophile-enabling and Holocaust-denying Cardinals in Rome.
Oh and Gary, it should be “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Papst.”
Nick: The roman church is steeped in misogyny. Powerful self-interests want to keep it that way. The few progressive parishes & priests in America and Western Europe in which you find your hope & solace are no match for the machine set up by Constantine 1700 years ago. You won’t win this one. Vatican II was a fluke, a highly unusual alignment of the stars that his successors (especially the last two, miserable hypocrites!) have almost successfully stamped out. The only effective way to change the roman church is to LEAVE IT.