A Frankfurt theological college rector left in limbo by Rome for his liberal views on homosexuality and women has won backing from German bishops and professors. Ansgar Wucherpfennig says he won't retract past remarks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Rumpenhorst
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Supporters of Wucherpfennig on Wednesday slammed the Vatican's withholding of approval for his third term at Frankfurt's Sankt Georgen University, joining appeals by German bishoprics and his own Catholic order for him to stay in the post of rector.
Wucherpfennig, a 52-year-old Jesuit professor, who since 2008 has held the chair in New Testament exegesis at Sankt Georgen and who in 2014 became the university's rector, was re-elected officially last February. However, he still does not have formal Vatican clearance to resume his next two-year tenure. The post of rector is being filled temporarily by a deputy.
Sankt Georgen University, with some 400 students, is where four bishoprics in Germany - Hamburg, Hildesheim, Limburg and Osnabrück - have their recruits trained for the priesthood and pastoral care. Three went public this week in backing him, joining support from lay "We are church" advocates and the Catholic BDKJ youth federation.
New Testament endorsement
In a 2016 interview, Wucherpfennig urged the global church to pave the way for women into the priesthood and to end discrimination against homosexuals, citing New Testament passages indicating that women once held church ministerial posts.
And this week, he told Catholic Church media: "I see my utterances on homosexuality and on the sanctification of same-sex couples on the basis of Catholic doctrine."
Endorsement 'star-lit moment'
Wucherpfennig described Wednesday's endorsement from German theologians as a "star-lit moment for the church in Germany" while hundreds of world bishops attended a synod on youth issues in Rome, running until October 29.
Frankfurt's loosely grouped professorial Scientific Circle (Wissenschaftsrunde) joined the inner-church German outcry Wednesday, accusing the Vatican through its behavior of "damaging its reputation and losing touch with the diverse society in which we live."
Countries that have legalized same-sex marriage
Ecuador became the latest country to allow same-sex marriage when its Constitutional Court ruled for two gay couples in June 2019. DW takes a look at some of the other countries that have taken the step.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMA Wire/O. Messinger
2001, The Netherlands
The Netherlands was the first country in the world to permit same-sex marriages after the Dutch parliament voted for legalization in 2000. The mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, wedded the first four same-sex couples at midnight on April 1, 2001 when the legislation came into effect. The new law also allowed same-sex couples to adopt children.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ANP/M. Antonisse
2003, Belgium
The Netherlands' neighbor, Belgium, followed the Dutch lead and legalized same-sex marriage two years later. The law gave same-sex partners many of the rights of their heterosexual counterparts. But unlike the Dutch, the Belgians did not initially allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The Belgian parliament passed a bill granting them that right three years later.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EPA/J. Warnand
2010, Argentina
Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriages when its Senate voted 33 to 27 in favor of it in July 2010. Argentina thereby became the tenth country in the world to permit gay and lesbian marriages. The South American country was not the only one to do so in 2010. Earlier in the year, Portugal and Iceland also passed same-sex marriage legislation.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EPA/L. La Valle
2012, Denmark
Denmark's parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of legalization in June 2012. The small Scandinavian country had made headlines before when it was the first country in the world to recognize civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples in 1989. Same-sex couples had also enjoyed the right to adopt children since 2009.
Image: picture-alliance/CITYPRESS 24/H. Lundquist
2013, New Zealand
New Zealand became the 15th country worldwide and the first Asia-Pacific country to allow gay and lesbian marriages in 2013. The first couples were married on August 19. Lynley Bendall (left) and Ally Wanik (right) were among them when they exchanged vows on board an Air New Zealand flight from Queenstown to Auckland. France legalized same-sex marriage the same year.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EPA/Air New Zealand
2015, Ireland
Ireland made headlines in May 2015 when it became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage through a referendum. Thousands of people celebrated in the streets of Dublin as the results came in showing almost two-thirds of voters opting for the measure.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/EPA/A. Crawley
2015, USA
The White House was alight in the colors of the rainbow flag on June 26, 2015. Earlier, the US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the constitution guaranteed marriage equality, a verdict that paved the way for same-sex couples to be married across the country. The decision came 12 years after the Supreme Court ruled that laws criminalizing gay sex were unconstitutional.
Germany became the fifteenth European country to legalize gay and lesbian marriages in June 30, 2017. The bill passed by 393 to 226 in the Bundestag, with four abstentions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel voted against the bill, but paved the way for its passage when she said her party would be allowed to vote freely on the measure only days before the vote took place.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMA Wire/O. Messinger
2017 - 2018, Australia
Following a postal survey which showed the majority of Australians were in favor of same-sex marriage, the country's parliament passed a law to legalize it in December 2017. As couples in Australia have to give authorities one month's notice of their nuptials, many of the first weddings took place just after midnight on January 9, 2018 - including that of Craig Burns and Luke Sullivan, pictured.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/P. Hamilton
2019, Taiwan
In May 2019, the island state became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. The government survived an attempt by conservative opposition to water down the bill. Gay couples are able to offically register their marriage from May 24 onwards. President Tsai Ing-wen called it "a big step towards true equality."
Image: dapd
2019, Ecuador
The Andean state's top court ruled 5-4 to allow two gay couples to marry in June. The decision followed a ruling from the Inter-American Court on Human Rights affirming that countries should allow same-sex couples the right to marry.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Ochoa
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Catholic theologians at Frankfurt's Goethe University called on cardinals responsible to "rethink and correct their decision" on Wucherpfennig, adding that the Vatican's stance "extremely" endangered the freedom of theological research and academic self-administration.
Johannes Siebner, the provincial superior for Jesuits in Germany, said the delay in obtaining the formal declaration of no-objection (Unbedenklichkeitserklärung) from Vatican education officials might be due to a "misunderstanding."
But he added: "We must, at last, accept relations between same-sex persons for what they are."
Siebner complained of a "twisted" and "obsolete" handling of the topic of homosexuality by those responsible in the Vatican.
Battle for power
Educator and theologian Klaus Mertes, who in Berlin in 2010 set in motion disclosures on church sexual abuse cases and who now directs St. Blasien, a church high school in Germany's southwestern Baden-Württemberg state, accused "Vatican officials" of interfering in serious theological teaching with a misplaced "penetrating self-assuredness."
Writing a guest article in the weekly Die Zeit, due for publication Thursday, Mertes said church authorities had sought to belittle Wucherpfennig with "barren words at the lowest intellectual level."
Mertes 'blew the whistle' on abuse scandals in 2010Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Stratenschulte
"Here it's clearly not about truth or the search for realistic pastoral care but a battle for power," Mertes said, accusing Vatican officials of mocking "all the efforts by priests on the ground to repair damage left by the abuse scandal."
Nearly two-thirds
A YouGov survey conducted in eight Catholic countries and published Wednesday found that 59 percent of respondents felt the church should reconsider its current teaching on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues.
At the Rome synod involving 266 bishops, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput declared last Thursday: "There is no such thing as an 'LGBTQ Catholic' or a 'transgender Catholic' or a 'heterosexual Catholic' — as if our sexual appetites defined who we are."
The synod began with a 70-page working paper that mentioned LGBT only once, asserting that sexuality can be "disfigured" by early activity, multiple partners, digital pornography and sexual tourism.
