(LifeSiteNews) — An openly homosexual German priest, who enjoys the support of his local bishop, has said that the Bible should be read through a “queer” lens.
Father Burkhard Hose, a well-known pro-LGBT activist within the Catholic Church in Germany, wrote an essay in which he laid out what it means to read Holy Scripture through a “queer” lens.
“Reading the Bible from a queer perspective essentially means approaching the texts as a source of liberation for all ways of life,” Hose said. “It seeks out marginalized perspectives, challenges power structures, and empowers people; at its best, it contributes to healing wounds.”
He explained that his concept of Bible exegesis includes questions like, “Who is/has been excluded?”, “Who is/has been marginalized?”, “How can the text be understood from a queer perspective?”, “What message does it convey to queer people?”
“In this sense, queer biblical interpretation, as a method, stands directly alongside Jesus, who walked alongside marginalized people, challenged religious and political authorities, empowered the poor and the marginalized, and worked to bring healing,” the heterodox Catholic priest wrote.
Hose claimed that the fact Jesus spoke in parables can itself “be described as queer” because it recognized “the everyday world as a place of theological insight” while “at the same time fundamentally questioning the patterns and orders that prevail in that everyday world.”
“In this sense, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God itself, which lies at the heart of the parables, is queer,” he stated.
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The priest said that the parable of the mustard seed “represents ways of life, beliefs, and bodies that do not fit into the conventional system of order—that which the Church often labels as ‘disordered,’ ‘irregular,’ or ‘problematic.’”
“From a queer perspective, the parable can be read as a critique of the Church’s logic of control: The Kingdom of God is not something that can be standardized, disciplined, or administered,” he continued. “It grows precisely where people refuse to be silenced, where they ‘make the Bible habitable again,’ where they experience themselves as being addressed—in opposition to interpretations that legitimize domination.”
“Read through a queer lens, the Kingdom of G*d [sic] is not a space of selection, but of refuge. It does not ask for conditions of entry, but creates safe spaces for the vulnerable, for those who had no place. It liberates from isolation and connects with many (and not only queer) people who stand up for diversity.”
Hose is a campus chaplain and campus liaison in the Diocese of Würzburg. In March 2021, he launched a petition campaign calling for the allowance of same-sex blessings after the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had stated that such blessings are not permitted.
In January 2022, he signed the #OutInChurch manifesto, which opposed “discrimination” against “queer people.” He also came out as homosexual at that time.
Instead of disciplining Hose for going against Church teaching and canon law, Bishop Franz Jung of Würzburg publicly supported the heterodox priest and stressed that sexual orientation, relationships, or “gender identity” are no longer causes for dismissal for clergy, in accordance with the heretical German Synodal Way, which Jung has supported.
The Catholic Church has always taught that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and contrary to nature. This teaching is connected to the nature of man and marriage and therefore irreformable. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states the following:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC 2357)