Germany’s Catholic Church, the second-largest employer in the country, may be set to remove the requirement that its employees order their private lives according to the Church’s moral teachings, a rule that currently officially bars active homosexuals and divorced and remarried Catholics. The German bishops were scheduled to vote yesterday on a proposal to allow those in homosexual or adulterous relationships to work for the Church, but have put it off until April amid criticism.
The decision comes in the wake of a German Constitutional Court ruling upholding the firing of a doctor from a Catholic hospital in Düsseldorf who had entered a second, civil marriage.
Writing for Breitbart, Vatican journalist Edward Pentin said that “a majority” of the German bishops, including the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who also serves on Pope Francis’ “cabinet” of nine cardinals, was set to vote in favour of the measure, with only a small number of “conservative” bishops against it. Pentin notes that the change has “been devised in secret” by the German bishops and that many “homosexuals and divorced and civilly remarried Catholics are already working for the Church.”
Pentin quotes an unnamed German Catholic Church source, saying that the bishops believe it is “simply enough to pay the [Church] tax. … They feel there’s no need to scrutinize people’s private lives.” The source said that some faithful Catholics fear that the change could lead to those who uphold the Church’s teaching being dismissed from their employment for being “too Catholic” and thereby creating a “negative atmosphere.”
In other words, brought to you by the same folks who tried to get the recent Extraordinary Synod in Rome to approve welcome for gay and lesbian Roman Catholics and change the rules regarding divorced Roman Catholics... While this is not my church speaking, it is illustrative of the typical thinking that is subverting churches of all kinds. Who are we to judge? What does it matter what goes on in the private lives of people? Why not just get with the times? What harm can we do by looking the other way on some of these, well, sensitive issues?
Again, my point is that the same kind of voices can be found in nearly every Christian church today. Change the Word to fit the circumstance... The Gospel and the love of Christ requires us to suspend all judgment against sins... We risk becoming irrelevant if we do not get with the times and catch up to where our people are at...
The other issue in all of this? Preserving the economic status quo! Better to have a prosperous Wal_Mart style Christianity in which we keep people happy and giving than to stand up for truth and risk offending people with the words and teaching of Jesus.
Let me say it again, there is no love, no compassion, and no kindness shown to anyone if truth is ignored for the sake of personal preference. I am in no way suggesting that we should be Pharisees or hypocrites and presume we are sinless when we hold up the truth of Scripture but we must, as St. Paul counsels, speak the truth in love. Anything less betrays our identity as the baptized people of God and the Church of Jesus Christ.
As these things continue to happen, we can indeed understand that a falling away is occurring in our day, because men prefer to do what is right in their own eyes. We should realize as well that the body of the true believers will be only a remnant. Many of today's mainline churches are rapidly accepting secular humanism and moral relativism while attempting to cloak it with God's word, and that is both immoral and offensive to God. Each day I awaken to a new and disturbing news report concerning the witness of God's people to a pagan world, and I wonder to myself....how long will this go on? Is judgment closer than we think?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and every other Church, at least in this country, should have the right to require their employees to follow their moral guidelines and these Churches should have the right to fire those who do not follow their standards.
ReplyDeleteThe local LCMS school should NOT be required to hire a gay teacher for instance, nor punished for firing a teacher who "comes out" as gay.
This is called "Separation of Church and State".
Let Churches retain their right to be homophobic, but in return, let's demand that Churches keep their homophobia within their own church and school walls.
Let us insist that Churches stop trying to breach the Separation of Church and State by participating in the political and legislative process to impose their restrictive and arbitrary moral values on the rest of us in secular society.