German bishops: ‘transsexual’ persons should not be ‘excluded’ from priesthood in 38-7 vote
The Daily Knight
Original article at LifeSite News.
The document states that ‘intersex and transsexual’ persons who want to be priests ‘must not be excluded across the board’ and that gender-confused people may change the sex entry on their baptismal forms.
FRANKFURT AM MAIN (LifeSiteNews) — The members of the heretical German Synodal Way have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a document replete with gender ideology that seeks to allow changing one’s listed sex on a baptismal certificate and paves the way for “transgender” priests.
The text entitled “Dealing with gender diversity” was approved by more than 95% of all votes on March 11 during the fifth Synodal Assembly in Frankfurt am Main. Of the 58 German bishops, only seven voted against the text, while 13 abstained. As journalist Martin Bürger noted in a CNA Deutsch article, if the bishops who abstained had voted “no” instead, the document’s approval could have been blocked due to the required two-thirds majority for bishops.
The document stated that for intersex and “transsexual” Catholics, “it is made possible to omit the gender entry in the baptismal register or, as now provided for in German law, to enter ‘diverse,’” and that “[i]f the desire to change the gender entry arises at a later date, this is granted in an uncomplicated manner.”
Moreover, the text challenges the solely male priesthood by calling for the possibility of “transgender” priests:
Access to holy orders and pastoral vocations must also be examined in each individual case for intersex and transsexual baptized and confirmed persons who sense a vocation for themselves and must not be excluded across the board.
The document furthermore seeks to eliminate the requirement for priests to have male biology: “The determination of the state of the external sexual characteristics is to be abolished where it should still be practiced in the course of the acceptance of a man as a candidate for the priesthood.”
The heterodox text also calls for “LGBTI* commissioners” to “be appointed in all (arch)dioceses, if possible” to guarantee “spiritual guidance for transgender and intersex faithful characterized by acceptance.”
“In parishes and Catholic institutions, appropriate educational programs and offerings are to be set up to raise awareness and sensitivity for the topic of gender diversity,” the document reads.
Defying the Vatican again
On March 10, the Synodal Assembly approved the “blessings” of same-sex couples, in open defiance of Church teaching and the Vatican’s 2021 negative answer regarding the question of the “blessing” of same-sex unions.
The German bishops and lay members of the Synodal Way are now going directly against another Vatican directive, namely the 2019 document Male and female he created them by the Congregation for Catholic Education.
In their text on “gender diversity,” the members of the Synodal Way openly criticized the Vatican’s condemnation of gender ideology and claimed that such condemnation promotes “exclusion, violence, and persecution, from which the Church should actually protect.”
On the other hand, the document approved by the Synodal Assembly praised the heterodox declaration by the Australian bishops titled Created and Loved: A guide for Catholic schools on identity and gender, which promoted a change of “gender” and unisex toilets, along with advice to use students’ “preferred name” and pronouns.
The heterodox text from the Synodal Assembly furthermore calls on Pope Francis and the college of bishops to “explicitly distance ourselves as a Church from views that see intersex and transsexuality as a pathological, negative or even sinful deviation.”
Moving towards schism
Faithful Catholic bishops like Cardinal Gerhard Müller have repeatedly warned that the heterodox Synodal Way would lead to schism. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, denounced the “schismatic vote” of the German bishops who voted in favor of blessings for same-sex unions.
“The president of every Bishop’s Conference around the world should denounce the schismatic vote of the 38 German bishops who have voted to bless same sex unions,” Strickland wrote.“We must speak out and call them to return to Catholic teaching. They have hardened their hearts to the Truth.”
Original article at LifeSite News.
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