Austrian Evangelical Church votes to publicly ‘bless’ homosexual unions

AUSTRIA, March 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – After weeks of discussion, the General Synod of the Austrian Evangelical Church (EKÖ) – a Lutheran denomination – agreed on Saturday, March 9 to allow homosexual couples to receive a church blessing during a public ceremony of worship. The move was approved by 45 votes to 18.

Despite several measures intended to protect conscientious objection on the part of pastors and communities, the vote is expected to create a deep divide in the Austrian Lutheran church and some commentators in Austria are already warning that a split is in view. Discussions, while courteous according to the Synod, were pointed and “the topic was debated vigorously,” commented the non-denominational Christian media service Glaube.at.

Each party referred to the Bible to justify the opposing views. Voters for the blessing ceremony quoted the commandment of love and spoke about God's mercy and “friendliness to man.” According to the theological document published by the General Synod, their objective is to bring people who suffer from discrimination closer to Christ. They also believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexual partnerships.

Those who oppose the blessing of same-sex unions called on biblical tradition which defines marriage as a God-willed faithful and lifelong relationship between a man and a woman, pointing at a Synod resolution in 1996 which said exactly that. Since then, the Lutheran assemblies of Austria had consistently refrained from suggesting that homosexual relationships could receive a public blessing.

What has changed is the recognition of same-sex civil “marriage” which became legal in Austria last January 1st following a decision of the Constitutional Court the previous month. Civil unions (registered partnerships) were legalized in 2010.

The Lutheran Church did not go so far as to approve holding same-sex “marriages” in church, stating that homosexual partnerships are merely “analogous to marriage”. It still upholds the “understanding of marriage as a lifelong relationship between husband and wife,” based on Scripture, according to the Synod decision.

But apart from the fact that it does not mention that homosexual relations are gravely sinful according to Christian teaching, instead calling this sin worthy of a blessing, the Synod pushed the analogy as far as it could, deciding that same-sex couples will only receive a blessing if they have already entered into a civil “marriage.” For homosexual couples, this constitutes an objective encouragement to enter into a same-sex "marriage."

Same-sex couples who are in a simple registered partnership will have to make do with a private blessing in the Lutheran pastoral framework – this has already been available to homosexuals in Austria since 2007.

As for the church ceremony, it will look very much like a marriage insofar as elements of Christian marriage will be part of the blessing. Partners will be expected to promise each other “voluntary holistic personal care, lifelong fidelity, mutual care and fidelity in good times and in bad times”, according to the evangelical news site evang.at.

Each local community will be allowed to choose whether or not it wishes to implement the decision of the Evangelical Church to “open” itself up, by way of a decision of the community representatives. Pastors and lectors (and their female counterparts) will be allowed to opt out personally, the Synod decided.

But for how long? One “pastoress,” Rvd. Veronika Obermeir-Siegrist of Linz, welcomed the decision in these terms: “The Austrian law does no longer discriminate against homosexual couples, and the Church should also put love first.” If refusing same-sex "marriage" is construed as a form of discrimination, conscientious objection may well disappear in the long run.

Lutheran Bishop Michael Bünker called the move a “significant step towards the equal rights of homosexual couples.” “I am personally pleased with this decision,” he commented. “The fact that many agreed, while they were initially skeptical – otherwise we would not have reached the two thirds majority – shows that the discussion process went well. I'm proud of this church!”, he proclaimed.

Not all evangelical churches in Austria agree with EKÖ. The Evangelical Alliance in the country, of which the Lutheran Church is a member, refused to comment on its “internal affairs.” At the European level, the Evangelical Alliance has recently published guidelines on “how to respond to the LGBT agenda” in which it clearly states that “moving away from God's pattern for family life is not an option for evangelical Christians.”

But Bishop Bünker does not believe that his own church will split over the issue, even though he acknowledged the existence of opposition within the EKÖ. “How to deal with this contradiction poses a major challenge to all those responsible,” he remarked. He believes all positions have been catered for. “I hope that the decision of the Synod of March 9 found a way which will allow as many people as possible to join,” he said, adding that individual members have indeed decided to leave the Evangelical church but that to this day, this remains in the “single-digit range.”

“It is not 29 percent of church members who have spoken out against thanksgiving and blessing services for homosexual couples, but communities that have passed resolutions through their representative bodies. What opinion the almost 300,000 members of the Protestant Church have, we have not verified. In any case, the decision of the synod provides for a clear and effective protection of the divergent opinion. Thus, the public blessing of homosexual couples should only be carried out in the communities that consciously decide on it and no pastor or lecturer is forced to perform such a blessing. This, I believe, ensures a very clear respect for those who have opposed such a blessing,” he added.

And so the confusion is getting steadily worse, with the idea that the fundamental question of the very nature of marriage can be put to the vote and that contradictory views can exist side by side and deserve equal respect.

Those who oppose the blessing of same-sex couples certainly do not appear to want to allow themselves to be silenced with a mere promise of conscientious objection. A lector from the community of Windischgarsten and former director of the Blue Cross, Dieter Reichert, told Glaube.at: “I am deeply shocked that the Evangelical Church has deviated so far from God’s word. Homosexuality is referred to as a sin in the Old and New Testaments, even by Jesus himself. The decision basically legalizes this sin. I am not proud of Bischof Bünker, I would be proud if he had said that this is not right, but that we love the sinner. That's what Jesus did. Honestly, I do not know what’s going to happen now with the Evangelical Church. I think a big rift has been made.”

Presbyter Bernhard Aigner of the Evangelical Church of Marchtrenk, in Upper Austria, also criticized the decision on Glaube.at.

“In contrast to Bishop Bünker, I am not proud of our church, on the one hand because of the nature of the decision-making process, which used surprise tactics and did not allow for a discussion outside the synod before it started, and then, leaving only a short ‘period of grace’ for discussion, made proper decision making on this topic very difficult for the communities. On the other hand I disagree with the content which is incompatible with my understanding of Scripture. In the Bible, marriage is unequivocally a lifelong and God-blessed union of man and woman – and not of man and man or woman and woman (which is now – through mere wordplay in my opinion – defined as ‘analogous to marriage’). The Church is no longer subject to the Word of God, it has placed itself above it. So doing, in my view, it has made a big stride towards its own ending,” he said.

And probably the popes before them knew.

The Code of Canon Law undertaken at the initiative and encouragement of Saint Pius X, and published in 1917 by his successor Pope Benedict XV, says this: “So far as laymen are concerned, the sin of sodomy is punished ipso facto with the pain of infamy and other sanctions to be applied according to the prudent judgment of the Bishop depending on the gravity of each case (Can. 2357). As for ecclesiastics and religious, if they are clerici minoris [that is, of the degree lower than deacon], let them be punished with various measures, proportional to the gravity of the fault, that can even include dismissal from the clerical state (Can. 2358); if they are clerici maiores [that is, deacons, priests or bishops], let them ‘be declared infamous and suspended from every post, benefit, dignity, deprived of their eventual stipend and, in the gravest cases, let them be deposed’ (Can. 2359, par. 2)”

Tertullian, the great apologist of the Church in the second century, writes: “All other frenzies of lusts which exceed the laws of nature and are impious toward both bodies and the sexes we banish … from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.” (Tertullian, De pudicitia, IV, in J. McNeil, op. cit., p. 89)

Saint Basil of Caesarea, the fourth century Church Father who wrote the principal rule of the monks of the East, establishes this: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship … with young people.” (St. Basil of Caesarea, in St. Peter Damien, Liber Gomorrhianus, op. cit. cols. 174f.)

Saint Augustine is categorical in the combat against sodomy and similar vices. The great Bishop of Hippo writes: “Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed. If all nations committed them, all alike would be held guilty of the same charge in God’s law, for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust.”
Further on he reiterates: “Your punishments are for sins which men commit against themselves, because, although they sin against You, they do wrong in their own souls and their malice is self-betrayed. They corrupt and pervert their own nature, which You made and for which You shaped the rules, either by making wrong use of the things which You allow, or by becoming inflamed with passion to make unnatural use of things which You do not allow” (Rom. 1:26). (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book III, chap. 8)

Saint John Chrysostom denounces homosexual acts as being contrary to nature. Commenting on the Epistle to the Romans (1: 26-27), he says that the pleasures of sodomy are an unpardonable offense to nature and are doubly destructive, since they threaten the species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end and they sow disharmony between men and women, who no longer are inclined by physical desire to live together in peace.

The brilliant Patriarch of Constantinople employs most severe words for the vice we are analyzing. Saint John Chrysostom makes this strong argument: “All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men…. The sins against nature are more difficult and less rewarding, since true pleasure is only the one according to nature. But when God abandons a man, everything is turned upside down! Therefore, not only are their passions [of the homosexuals] satanic, but their lives are diabolic….. So I say to you that these are even worse than murderers, and that it would be better to die than to live in such dishonor. A murderer only separates the soul from the body, whereas these destroy the soul inside the body….. There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.” (St. John Chrysostom, In Epistulam ad Romanos IV, in J. McNeill, op. cit., pp. 89-90)

Saint Gregory the Great delves deeper into the symbolism of the fire and brimstone that God used to punish the sodomites: “Brimstone calls to mind the foul odors of the flesh, as Sacred Scripture itself confirms when it speaks of the rain of fire and brimstone poured by the Lord upon Sodom. He had decided to punish in it the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment emphasized the shame of that crime, since brimstone exhales stench and fire burns. It was, therefore, just that the sodomites, burning with perverse desires that originated from the foul odor of flesh, should perish at the same time by fire and brimstone so that through this just chastisement they might realize the evil perpetrated under the impulse of a perverse desire.” (St. Gregory the Great, Commento morale a Giobbe, XIV, 23, vol. II, p. 371, Ibid., p. 7)

Saint Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus [Book of Gomorrha], addressed to Pope Leo IX in the year 1051, is considered the principal work against homosexuality. It reads: “Just as Saint Basil establishes that those who incur sins [against nature] … should be subjected not only to a hard penance but a public one, and Pope Siricius prohibits penitents from entering clerical orders, one can clearly deduce that he who corrupts himself with a man through the ignominious squalor of a filthy union does not deserve to exercise ecclesiastical functions, since those who were formerly given to vices … become unfit to administer the Sacraments.” (St. Peter Damian, op. cit., cols. 174f)

St. Peter Damian also writes:

“This vice strives to destroy the walls of one’s heavenly motherland and rebuild those of devastated Sodom. Indeed, it violates temperance, kills purity, stifles chastity and annihilates virginity ... with the sword of a most infamous union. It infects, stains and pollutes everything; it leaves nothing pure, there is nothing but filth ... This vice expels one from the choir of the ecclesiastical host and obliges one to join the energumens and those who work in league with the devil; it separates the soul from God and links it with the demons. This most pestiferous queen of the Sodomites [which is homosexuality] makes those who obey her tyrannical laws repugnant to men and hateful to God ... It humiliates at church, condemns at court, defiles in secret, dishonors in public, gnaws at the person’s conscience like a worm and burns his flesh like fire...
“The miserable flesh burns with the fire of lust, the cold intelligence trembles under the rancor of suspicion, and the unfortunate man’s heart is possessed by hellish chaos, and his pains of conscience are as great as the tortures in punishment he will suffer ... Indeed, this scourge destroys the foundations of faith, weakens the force of hope, dissipates the bonds of charity, annihilates justice, undermines fortitude, ... and dulls the edge of prudence.
“What else shall I say? It expels all the forces of virtue from the temple of the human heart and, pulling the door from its hinges, introduces into it all the barbarity of vice ... In effect, the one whom ... this atrocious beast [of homosexuality] has swallowed down its bloody throat is prevented, by the weight of his chains, from practicing all good works and is precipitated into the very abysses of its uttermost wickedness. Thus, as soon as someone has fallen into this chasm of extreme perdition, he is exiled from the heavenly motherland, separated from the Body of Christ, confounded by the authority of the whole Church, condemned by the judgment of all the Holy Fathers, despised by men on earth, and reproved by the society of heavenly citizens. He creates for himself an earth of iron and a sky of bronze ... He cannot be happy while he lives nor have hope when he dies, because in life he is obliged to suffer the ignominy of men’s derision and later, the torment of eternal condemnation” (Liber Gomorrhianus, in PL 145, col. 159-178).

Saint Albert the Great gives four reasons why he considers homosexual acts as the most detestable ones: They are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another. (St. Albert the Great, In Evangelium Lucae XVII, 29, in J. McNeill, op. cit., p. 95)

Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: “However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas Sancti Pauli Ad Romanum I, 26, pp. 27f)

Saint Bonaventure, speaking in a sermon at the church of Saint Mary of Portiuncula about the miracles that took place simultaneously with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, narrates this: “Seventh prodigy: All sodomites—men and women—died all over the earth, as Saint Jerome said in his commentary on the psalm ‘The light was born for the just.’ This made it clear that He was born to reform nature and promote chastity.” (St. Bonaventure, Sermon XXI—In Nativitate Domini, in Catolicismo (Campos/Sao Paulo), December 1987, p. 3; F. Bernardei, op. cit., p. 11)

Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14^th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] … but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…. It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.” (St. Catherine of Siena, El diálogo, in Obras de Santa Catarina de Siena (Madrid: BAC, 1991), p. 292)

Saint Bernardine of Siena, a preacher of the fifteenth century, makes an accurate psychological analysis of the consequences of the homosexual vice. The illustrious Franciscan writes: “No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God….. Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor…. Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than any one else, because this is the worst sin that there is.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche volgari (Milan: Rizzoli, 1936), pp. 869ff., 915, in F. Bernadei, op. cit., pp. 11f)

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