Church teaching must change on sexual morality, says German bishop

German Catholic Bishop Stephan Ackermann

This sort of thing is going to come as a painful shock to to Mirror of Justice bloggers like Robert John Araujo, S.J. who writes that "it is the duty of the Catholic teacher who remains true to the faith to point out with reason, with humility, with respect, and with resolve that claims about unlawful discrimination based on different treatment between same-sex and opposite-sex are wrong." - GWC

Church teaching must change on sexual morality, says German bishop | National Catholic Reporter:
by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

The responses to the Vatican questionnaire on the family are a clear signal that certain changes concerning the church’s teaching on sexual morality are imperative, according to Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, Germany.
Interviewed by the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, Ackermann, 50, said the responses showed “quite clearly” that for the majority of the faithful the church’s teaching on moral sexuality was “repressive” and “remote from life.”

Declaring a second marriage after a divorce a perpetual mortal sin, and under no circumstances allowing remarried divorced people ever to receive the Sacraments, was not helpful, he said and added, “We bishops will have to make suggestions here. We must strengthen people’s sense of responsibility and then respect their decisions of conscience.”

It was also no longer tenable to declare that every kind of cohabitation before marriage was a grievous sin, and “the difference between natural and artificial birth control is somehow artificial. No one understands it I fear,” Ackermann said.

As far as homosexual relationships were concerned, the church would have to appeal to people’s sense of responsibility, he continued. “The Christian concept of the human being emanates from the polarity of the sexes but we cannot simply say homosexuality is unnatural,” he explained. 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.
Ackermann was sharply criticized by Bishops Heinz Josef Algermissen of Fulda and Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg.

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