September 26, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – In light of the recent revelations that Bishop Felix Genn of Münster, Germany, does not stop or hinder one of his priests from spreading books for youth that promote homosexuality, another one of his own priests has now gone to the public saying that such inaction should rule out the bishop from participating in the October 2018 Youth Synod in Rome.
LifeSiteNews has received a 25 September 2018 letter which is addressed to both Gloria.tv and LifeSiteNews and which is signed by Father Paul Spätling. In that letter, he responds to recent reports concerning Bishop Genn's failure to correct an openly pro-LGBT priest in his own diocese.
Father Spätling recounts how Bishop Genn, four years ago, published and implemented some preventive measures concerning abuses for all of his priests – without exception. “However, they are feckless,” comments the priest, adding: “The case of Father Norbert Happe from the parish of St. John the Baptist in Beelen proves it.” Happe is that very priest who recently gave an interview explaining why he donated to the local Catholic library two pro-LGBT youth books, one of them even being titled Two Boys Kissing.
“With the help of pictures, little children are to be acquainted with homosexuality,” explains Father Spätling. “The bishop refuses to make any statement about it. And the priest [Happe] cheerfully continues.” He who is silent, seems to concur is a Latin saying that the Spätling quotes here and he then applies it to his own bishop: “The bishop seems to agree. Happe can continue to be a priest – in spite of his clear seduction of children into homosexuality.”
According to Spätling, Bishop Genn's silence with regard to Happe's conduct “makes one wonder whether the bishop is really interested in [sex abuse] prevention.”
“And now this bishop is to participate at the Youth Synod in Rome,” continues the priest.
Spätling mentioned in his letter the example of Robert Mutsaerts, auxiliary bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) in the Netherlands, who announced a few days ago that he will not participate at the Youth Synod, even though the Dutch Bishops' Conference had appointed him for it. Mutsaerts said he explicitly canceled his upcoming participation in light of the Viganò revelations and the growing sex abuse crisis. As Spätling describes it: “The reason: in light of so much abuse of the young, all the way up to bishops and cardinals, a participation rules itself out at this point.” The priest then emphatically adds: “But Bishop Genn's participation rules itself out even more!”
The priest commented that such reasoning appeared to be “completely inaccessible” to Pope Francis.
Spätling went on to comment how his own bishop forbids priests in the diocese to preaching on the Church's teaching on sexual morality.
“Bishop Genn forbids priests to preach on sexuality,” for example about St. Paul's words in 1 Cor. 6:9, according to whom people who commit “fornication, idolatry, adultery, pedophilia, theft” cannot enter the Kingdom of God. “Our bishop forbids us from telling that to the faithful,” Spätling states. “Because it is not 'in' [fashionable].”
Quoting Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, the German priest points out that such “pastoral correctness” of the shepherds makes them also guilty regarding the current state of the Church.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller's recent rejection of the notion of “clericalism” – as it is now also being used by Bishop Genn himself – is a voice of authority against the “turning away from the truth,” explains Spätling. The priest summarizes the Cardinal's words, as follows: “The cause of all these moral failures is the loss of Faith. That is even worse than the moral decomposition.”
Father Spätling ends his letter with a joyful expression of his own adherence to the Faith: “We only need our Faith. And the Faith has a foundation. But it is exactly these foundations of the Faith that have been criminally neglected by the German bishops, for at least 50 years now.”
As LifeSiteNews reported on 19 September, Father Spätling had earlier accused his own Bishop Genn also of covering up the abuse of his predecessor in Münster and of tolerating for ten years a homosexual priest as the head of his seminary, the Borromäum.
Note: Follow LifeSite's new Catholic twitter account to stay up to date on all Church-related news. Click here: @LSNCatholic
