(LifeSiteNews) — Two more German dioceses have rejected the German Bishops’ Conference’s (DBK) controversial document on “sexual diversity” in Catholic schools.
The Archdiocese of Cologne and the Diocese of Regensburg have joined the Bishop of Passau, Stefan Oster, in criticizing the DBK’s pro-LGBT sexual education guidelines for Catholic schools.
READ: German Bishop Oster denounces pro-LGBT Catholic school guidelines as ‘Gnosticism’
The Diocese of Regensburg, headed by Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer, published Oster’s statement on its website, in which the Bishop of Passau rebuked the heterodox document. Shortly after that, the Archdiocese of Cologne, headed by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, also published the statement and joined Oster in his critique.
All three bishops are known as vocal critics of the heretical German Synodal Way, which seeks to change immutable Church doctrine on marriage, sexuality, and human anthropology.
At the end of October, the DBK had published the document “Created, redeemed, and loved: Visibility and recognition of sexual diversity in schools.”
The aim of the document is to recognize and accept the “diversity of sexual orientations” in Catholic schools. It demands an “open and appreciative approach” from teachers to the sexual and gender self-identification of students. The document fails to uphold Catholic moral teaching, i.e., that sexual intercourse is only licit between a married man and woman and that same-sex attraction is disordered and contrary to nature. It also fails to mention that God created mankind as male and female and that only two genders exist.
Oster warned that “in its current form, the text produced by the Commission for Religious Education is well on the way to a de-sacralized understanding of humankind.”
“For a different doctrine of humanity leads to a different doctrine of revelation, of the sacraments, of salvation – and thus necessarily to a different doctrine of the Church and its existence – and ultimately even to a different understanding of the Triune God,” he said.
The bishop also criticized the DBK’s guidelines for failing to adequately address the issue of transgender identity disorder.
“Paradoxically, the phrase ‘exactly as God intended and loved’ is also supposed to apply to trans-identifying people who wish to align their physical sex characteristics with their new gender.”
Oster asks whether “God’s will” then refers only to the inner self-identification of being in the wrong body. Viewing the mind as independent from its alleged “wrong body” would represent a form of Gnosticism, a heresy condemned by the Church, the bishop warned.