BONN (GERMANY)
Deutsche Welle
February 3, 2019
Eight religious thought leaders have urged Cardinal Reinhard Marx for more tolerance towards gays and a change to celibacy rules. Allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic bishops continue to fuel modernization demands.
The head of the Catholic Church in Germany on Sunday faced fresh calls for “courageous reforms” in the wake of a sex-abuse scandal that has implicated nearly 1,700 clerics.
Eight well-known theologians and Catholics wrote an open letter to Cardinal Reinhard Marx urging the Church to “free diocesan priests to choose their own way of life,” in other words, recommending a relaxation of strict celibacy rules.
The letter, published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper, also called for a limitation of church powers, the extension of full priesthood to women, and a “reasonable and just evaluation of homosexuality.”
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