Polish bishops clarify call for counseling centers in ‘LGBT+’ document

Munich, Germany, Dec 10, 2018 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was named the new leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at a special party conference December 7.

A practicing Catholic, Kramp-Karrenbauer – known as AKK in the German press – was seen as the preferred choice of German chancellor and outgoing CDU leader Angela Merkel.

A married mother of three, Kramp-Karrenbauer previously served as secretary general of the party and minister-president of the western German region of Saarland. She defeated Friedrich Merz, a former member of the European Parliament and Bundestag, winning a run-off ballot with 517 of 1,001 potential votes.

As head of the CDU, Kramp-Karrenbauer is now widely regarded as a possible chancellor-in-waiting behind Merkel, who has said she will step down at the end of her current term in 2021.

Broadly seen as economically liberal, many political commentators have dubbed Kramp-Karrenbauer “mini-Merkel” and she is widely considered to be a continuity candidate with the current chancellor, who led the party from 2000-2018.

Kramp-Karrenbauer is known for her traditional social views, and has previously drawn attention for her outspoken opposition to same-sex marriage and gay adoption. As head of the Saarland region, she warned that same-sex marriage could create a legal precedent for recognizing incesuous and polygamous unions.

“If we open up this definition [of marriage] to become a long-term responsible partnership between two adults, then other demands can’t be ruled out, such as a marriage between close relatives or between more than two people,” she argued in 2015.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Germany in 2017.

While often characterized as a “staunch” or “devout” Catholic, Kramp-Karrenbauer has been a vocal supporter of female ordination in the Church. Earlier this year, she told the weekly newspaper Die Zeit that “It is very clear: women have to take positions of leadership in the Church,” eventually including women-priests but beginning with the “more realistic goal” of a female diaconate.

As the largest economy in the European Union, Germany politics plays a crucial role in the direction of the continent, with the German chancellor functioning as a de facto leader for the union. As Merkel’s acknowledged preferred successor, Kramp-Karrenbauer’s views on a range of policy issues will be scrutinized by leaders across the EU.

On the politically sensitive topic of mass-migration to the Europe, Merkel’s open-door policy to migrants in 2015 was widely seen as out of step with broader European policy, making Germany a beacon nation for refugees and economic migrants alike, and putting pressure on neighbouring countries.

Kramp-Karrenbauer has called for a more forward-looking debate on the subject of immigration and mass-migration.

In November, she told German television station NTV that she did not want to see a “backward-looking discussion” or “eternal debate about what was done right or wrong in the autumn of 2015.” Instead, she said, she wanted to see an “honest” discussion about the current effects of years of migration “uncontrolled and without integration.”

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Pope emeritus Benedict XVI. / Paul Badde/CNA.

Rome Newsroom, Feb 4, 2022 / 05:00 am (CNA).
Benedict XVI never sought to cover up cases of sex abuse by clergy. That is the conviction of the German Bishop Stefan Oster.In a reflection published on… […]

Lourdes, France, Aug 8, 2017 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A government proposal in the United Kingdom to set up an anti-extremism commission could unjustly affect faithful Christians, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury has warned.

The present is “a time when our own country faces uncertainty about its calling and struggles to define arbitrary values which might preserve society now confronted by aggressive ideologies and homicidal terror,” Bishop Davies said during his homily at a July 31 Mass.

He was speaking to English pilgrims at Lourdes, and addressed the proposal by Prime Minister Theresa May’s Consverative minority government to establish a Commission for Countering Extremism.

This commission, meant to counter Islamist extremism, is to “stamp out extremist ideology in all its forms” and identify extremisms which undermine British values.

May has said that “there is clearly a role for government in tackling extremism where it involves behaviour that is or ought to be criminal. But there is also a role for government to help people and build up organisations in society to promote and defend Britain’s pluralistic values.”

A similar effort by David Cameron’s Conservative government to promote “British values” in schools was received by Catholic Voices UK as a potential harm to sincere religious believers and to Catholic schools. Bishop Davies at that time warned, “our values cannot be arbitrarily formulated by any passing generation of politicians even if they have the best intentions.”

In his homily at Lourdes, the bishop noted that there is confusion in the UK over what constitutes extremism, citing a recent poll that found “1 in 3 Britons now regard the claims of Christianity and even the person of Jesus Christ as representing extremism.”

“It is even possible that the very faith in Christ on which our nation was built, might become a focus of the Government’s counter-extremism agenda,” he lamented.

In the face of this, Christians are called to acknowledge that “we know of no moderation … in our following of Christ and in all that contributes to the good of society, recognising how we are all called to the extremes of charity; of virtue; of grace; of unswerving adherence to goodness and truth, to the high goal of holiness in which lies our ultimate happiness.”

This, he said, is the heart of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching:”an utterly inclusive message, that we are all called to holiness which is the perfection of love, the complete happiness of becoming a saint.”

“This was the first calling of the English people and it is the divine vocation which can now shape our lives, our families and the whole future of our society.”

The bishop did warn against a “destructive extremism” which seeks to de-construct marriage, family, and human identity, and which “calls for medical experimentation with no reference to ethical boundaries; that decrees the unborn may live only to terms fixed by man, demands legal protections be removed from the sick and the aged.”

“It is such extremism which surely threatens the foundations of society.”

The “extreme agenda” of Christ and the Church is “the call to the perfection of charity and the fullness of the Christian life which today we share,” he concluded.

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