(LifeSiteNews) — Swiss laypeople have decided to cut funding to the Swiss Diocese of Basel if the bishop does not meet their demand to move away from the “anti-life [sic] and homophobic sexual morals” of the Church. Meanwhile, a record number of people left the Catholic Church in Switzerland last year.
On November 8, the Synodal Council of the Catholic Church in the Swiss canton of Lucerne decided to withhold a part of the church tax from the Diocese of Basel if Bishop Felix Gmür does not meet their demands, Swiss news agency SRF reported.
The Council demands that the Diocese of Basel set up an independent investigation and reporting office for sexual abuse cases. Furthermore, no old files that may contain evidence should be destroyed anymore. The papal nuncio should open all archives that have not been made public yet, and the Church must depart from its “anti-life and homophobic sexual morals.”
In a press release, the synod explained that the relationship status of Church employees “should not be relevant to employment or dismissal,” meaning that Church staff can openly live a “lifestyle” contrary to Church teaching, e.g., have homosexual relations.
The heterodox push to water down the moral teaching of the Church is embedded in a bill centered around measures against sexual abuse. These measures were triggered by an abuse report published in September that accused multiple Swiss bishops of covering up and facilitating sexual abuse in their dioceses.
READ: New report accuses late Swiss bishop connected to St. Gallen Mafia of covering up sexual abuse
The Synodal Council of the Catholic Church in Switzerland functions as a parliament that can decide the allocation of Church funds. This Swiss dual system gives a tremendous amount of power to the laity, as the members of the Synodal Council are mostly laypeople. The synod voted 76 to 12 in favor of the motion to withhold funds from the Diocese of Basel if their demands are not met.
The heterodox forces in Switzerland who wish to officially allow church employees to openly live in homosexual or any other type of relationships already have a precedent in a neighboring country. Last year, the German bishops adopted a new labor code that allows Church employees to live in same-sex or “re-married” relationships.
Swiss Church in turmoil: Record number of people left the Church
The Catholic Church in Switzerland is in a state of turmoil, as it is faced with a combination of widespread clerical sexual abuse investigations as well as moral and doctrinal heterodoxy.
Swiss Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain of Chur, whom Pope Francis appointed in February 2021 as a “bridgebuilder,” has expressed support for same-sex unions, knowingly gave Holy Communion to non-Catholics, abolished the office of exorcist in his diocese, and declined to punish two women who attempted to concelebrate a Catholic Mass. He has furthermore been accused by priests in his diocese of implementing “LGBT ideology under the guise of preventing sexual assault” by issuing a pro-LGBT code of conduct that forbids priests to express “sweeping negative assessment” of homosexual acts and other “allegedly [sic] unbiblical behavior.”
Despite his extremely heterodox track record, the Vatican appointed Bonnemain as a “special investigator” and tasked him to look into the abuse allegations against clerics, including some of his fellow Swiss bishops.
READ: Vatican appoints heterodox, pro-LGBT bishop to investigate sexual abuse cases in Switzerland
In 2022, a record number of people (34,561) left the Catholic Church in Switzerland. This means that the number of Catholics dropped by around 1.3 percent last year, leaving 2.89 million Catholics in the country with a population of 8.7 million. The statistics suggest that one reason for people exiting the Church may be the requirement to pay Church tax in some Cantons of Switzerland, which can be avoided only by leaving the Church. Almost no departures were recorded in the Western Cantons of Geneva, Valais, Neuchâtel, and Vaud, where Church taxes are not mandatory.
The Swiss Institute for Pastoral Sociology (SPI), which published the data, wrote, “The reputation of the Catholic Church has deteriorated in recent weeks and months.”
“The report on the history of sexual abuse in the environment of the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland and its reception by the media and the public have largely undermined trust in the Church.”
“There is talk of a systematic concealment of cases, the protection of aggressors rather than victims, and other accusations still hover. All of this undermines the credibility of the Church, and we can expect the number of people leaving the Church to continue to increase,” the SPI concluded.