(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising has celebrated an “ecumenical requiem” for a glacier together with members of the Evangelical Church.
The event was held on July 25 at the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, to bid farewell to the “glacier status” of the Schneeferner and to “draw attention to the consequences of rapidly advancing climate change and the importance of preserving creation,” according to a press release by the archdiocese.
The service was led by a female Protestant pastor and a lay Catholic “pastoral assistant.” According to the media reports, no Catholic clergy were present at the event.
“Around 50 people followed the ceremony in the chapel of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary at an altitude of 2,600 meters on the Zugspitzplatt,” the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising wrote in a Facebook post. “The cross, decorated with skull and crossbones, led the mourners through wind and fog in the direction of the ‘deathbed’.”
“We are afraid of our livelihoods melting away like this glacier,” said the Protestant pastor, Uli Wilhelm, who came up with the glacier requiem idea, according to a report from Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Wilhelm said that she “sees with sadness, concern, and anger how the climate is changing,” and added, “It is incomprehensible that solutions are being put on the back burner.”
According to Catholic teaching and Tradition, a requiem is to be celebrated only for deceased human persons, not for inanimate objects like glaciers or even other living creatures like animals or plants. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that “Requiem Masses are masses that are offered for the dead.” The article also states multiple times that a Requiem Mass is to be offered for one or more “persons.” The aim of a Requiem Mass is to beg God for the salvation of the departed’s soul, not to wish him or her a fond farewell.
The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising is headed by Cardinal Reinhard Marx who is infamous for his heterodoxy. The former head of the German bishop’s conference is a vocal leader in the heretical, pro-LGBT Synodal Way, and has made multiple statements contradicting the Catholic faith. He has claimed, for instance, that Jesus Christ “does not want to proclaim a doctrine of God.”
READ: Cdl. Marx contradicts Scripture in claiming Jesus ‘does not want to proclaim a doctrine of God’