When visiting a Catholic public school last week, Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg showed himself to be incredibly progressive on the issue of homosexuality.

As Osthessen News reported, Ludwig Schick, Archbishop of Bamberg and Metropolitan of the church province of Bamberg since 2002, visited the Marianum in Fulda last week, where he held a mass on the patron day of the school. A subsequent panel discussion with pupils* of the 12th year rounded off the visit.

Catholic Church and Homosexuality

Asked about the topic of homosexuality and the church, Schick assured that all people are free to live their lives in charity. This is the Christian message and official teaching of the church. Nevertheless, the 71-year-old admitted that the message had not reached everyone. In the past, parts of the church had not shown respect for homosexuals, Schick said. The church had to apologise for that.

For him, the archbishop affirmed that homosexual people are just as valuable as all other people. In the past, on the other hand, Schick has attracted attention as an opponent of queer rights: He was always opposed to equal rights for same-sex partnerships, wanted to have blasphemy banned by law (2012) and thought that homosexuals should better atone for their “sins and weaknesses” in the confessional than through a public coming-out (2014). Gay priests were not ordained by him, he said, because the task of a priest is to promote marriage and family (2018).

Where does this change of heart come from, one wonders. Is it the mildness of age, or rather the insight that since the inauguration of Pope Francis and the growth of initiatives such as Mary 2.0, the sovereignty of interpretation has inevitably begun to shift? The thaw in the Catholic Church and the delicate efforts towards a new ideological orientation can hardly be denied any longer. Perhaps Ludwig Schick also had his own ministry in mind when he emphasised at the end of the panel discussion:

“Whoever incites against homosexuals loses his church office.”

Sex and good food

In a recent book by Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement, Pope Francis praised the good food … and loving sexual intercourse. According to katholisch.de, both are “simply divine”.

Contrary views such as “overzealous morals” and the Catholic Church’s propagated hostility towards pleasure – for the Pope a “wrong interpretation of the Christian message” – had “caused enormous damage”, said Francis, “which in some cases is still strongly felt today”.

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