HAMBURG, Germany (CNS) — Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx has called for a change in Catholic teaching on homosexuality, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.
“The catechism just isn’t set in stone. One may query what it says,” Cardinal Marx told the weekly magazine Stern in an interview published March 31.
“Homosexuality just isn’t a sin. It corresponds to a Christian attitude when two people, no matter gender, get up for one another, in joy and sorrow,” he said. The worth of affection was also shown in “not making the opposite person an object, not using her or him or humiliating her or him.”
Cardinal Marx added: “LGBTQ+ individuals are a part of creation and loved by God, and we’re called upon to face against discrimination.” He also said, “Those that threaten homosexuals and anyone else with hell have understood nothing.”
“Homosexuality just isn’t a sin. It corresponds to a Christian attitude when two people, no matter gender, get up for one another, in joy and sorrow,” Cardinal Marx said.
Earlier in March, at a Mass celebrating the twentieth anniversary of “queer services” in Munich, Cardinal Marx apologized for the church’s discrimination against homosexuals. In his sermon, the cardinal promoted an “inclusive church.”
The cardinal told Stern that only 10 years ago he couldn’t have imagined holding such a service.
“For years I even have felt freer to say what I believe, and I would like to take church teaching forward,” he told the magazine.
The cardinal said these questions had already been discussed six years ago on the Synod of Bishops on the family on the Vatican. Even then he had said: “People live in an intimate loving relationship that also has a sexual type of expression. And we wish to say that this just isn’t price anything?”
“A number of years ago in Los Angeles, after a service, two got here to ask for my blessing. So I did. It wasn’t a marriage ceremony. We will’t offer the sacrament of marriage.”
The archbishop admitted that he had blessed same-sex couples.
“A number of years ago in Los Angeles, after a service, two got here to ask for my blessing. So I did. It wasn’t a marriage ceremony. We will’t offer the sacrament of marriage.”
Cardinal Marx also indicated that it could not be easy to succeed in a consensus on the difficulty within the church.
“In Africa or within the Orthodox churches, there are completely different views in some quarters. It does people no good if we divide ourselves on this issue, but we mustn’t stand still, either.”
