The German Catholic diocese of Fulda has distanced itself from homophobic remarks made by a retired priest, saying they reflected neither the diocese’s position nor the views of its leadership, according to a statement published on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The former priest had written a letter to the editor of the local newspaper in the central German city, the Fuldaer Zeitung, in response to the deadly attack on the LGBT+ Pride event in Berlin, known locally as Christopher Street Day (CSD), saying that all those who still called themselves Christians should “understand such atrocities as a sign from heaven, as a call to reflection and repentance.”<\/p>\n
The diocese said in its statement: “In particular, we firmly reject any interpretation of a terrorist attack as an expression of divine action.” In light of the attack, its sympathies lay with the victims, their families and all those shaken by the crime, it said.<\/p>\n
The diocese emphasized in its statement: “As a Church, we believe that every person is made in the image of God and possesses an inalienable dignity. This gives rise to the duty to treat all people with respect, consideration and neighbourly love – regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”<\/p>\n
The CSD stood for the cause of drawing attention to the dignity of all people and standing against exclusion and violence, it said. The diocese said it supported peaceful engagement for an open, respectful and free society.<\/p>\n
Editor-in-chief: ‘Letters to the editor that leave you speechless’<\/p>\n
Tobias Farnung, editor-in-chief of the Fuldaer Zeitung, also distanced himself clearly from the letter. “There are letters to the editor you can argue about. And there are letters to the editor that leave you speechless,” he wrote in a comment piece in Saturday’s edition.<\/p>\n
Everyone was entitled to reject the CSD, and no one had to approve of the event, he said. But the letter had gone far beyond that. “Anyone who describes a terrorist attack on an event at which people are attacked, injured and even killed as a ‘sign from heaven’ and a ‘call to reflection and repentance’ crosses a line,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
This turned the condemnation of an event into the religious interpretation of a violent crime as a divine message, he said, and retroactively stripped the victims of their dignity.<\/p>\n
In Berlin, Islamist attacker Abdul B drove a car into a crowd at the CSD event on July 25 and allegedly attacked others with a machete. A woman from Poland died, and 31 people were wounded. The 21-year-old was shot dead by police during an attempted arrest the next day.<\/p>\n
Priest writes of ‘parade of shamelessness’<\/p>\n
In the letter, published on Friday, the former priest from the Fulda district described the CSD as a “parade of shamelessness” and a “publicly displayed glorification of perversion.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, he said distinctions had to be drawn. “The rejection of Christianity does not in any way justify the brutal and contemptuous actions of the Islamic terrorists, whose murders and gang rapes are an expression of their hatred,” he wrote. Such terrorists had to be stopped, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German Catholic diocese of Fulda has distanced itself from homophobic remarks made by a retired priest, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,65522,66983,66981,190,66984,66982,2498],"class_list":["post-139009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-christopher-street-day","tag-fuldaer-zeitung","tag-german-catholic","tag-germany","tag-letter-to-the-editor","tag-priest","tag-terrorist-attack"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117022238293808098","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}