Posted on 03/11/2026 4:59:25 PM PDT by ebb tide
The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has faced massive criticism for naming a heterodox priest, who has been accused of having a homosexual relationship with a seminarian, to its advisory board for sexual abuse victims.
A recently published exposé by the German magazine Cicero revealed that Fr. Wolfgang Rothe’s appointment to the DBK’s advisory board for sexual abuse victims in December 2024 had caused internal controversy at the time, with some bishops opposing the nomination.
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg described the appointment as “unacceptable.” Cardinal Reinhard Marx, himself pro-LGBT, is also said to have objected to the appointment in November 2024. Critics have said that Rothe himself was a perpetrator, not a victim, of sexual abuse.
The criticism of Rothe goes back to his time as vice rector of a seminary in St. Pölten, Austria. In 2004, Rothe was involved in a major scandal when he had to step down as vice rector after child pornography and photographs depicting homosexual activity involving seminarians and staff emerged. Photos also showed Rothe kissing a man.
The seminary was eventually shut down by the Vatican’s special investigator, Bishop Klaus Küng. Rothe and rector Ulrich Küchl were accused of allowing homosexual activity in the seminary. Bishop Küng said at the time that the seminary was defeating its purpose by turning out young men utterly unfit to serve the Catholic Church, citing the Church’s prohibition on ordaining men “who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”
Rothe has denied the allegations, but he has lost all appeals at Austrian courts and the European Court of Human Rights.
The controversial priest also claimed to have been the victim of sexual abuse by the then-papal investigator Bishop Küng. However, Church and state investigations into the allegation were inconclusive or were dropped due to the statute of limitations.
Today, Rothe, who is openly homosexual, is one of the most aggressively outspoken promoters of the LGBT agenda.
In March 2024, Rothe attended and promoted an event of the blasphemous, pro-LGBT “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”
READ: Thousands gather in defense of Christ as LA Dodgers honor blasphemous drag ‘nuns’
In 2021, Rothe sued Polish priest Fr. Dariusz Oko for “hate speech” for publishing an article exposing homosexual abuse within the Church. A German court subsequently fined Oko in a move sharply condemned by Cardinal Gerhard Müller.
Rothe was also one of the activists behind an initiative in which Catholic clergy “blessed” homosexual “couples” in over 100 events celebrated throughout Germany on May 9-10, 2021, shortly after the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith had declared in a response to a dubium that the Church did not “have the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.”
After the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released the heterodox declaration Fiducia Supplicans in December 2023, Rothe was hailed as a “pioneer for the rights of queer people (sic) within the Catholic Church” by the prominent German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The Catholic initiative “New Beginning” (Neuer Anfang) also condemned Roth’s nominations publicly in February. Bernhard Meuser, co-founder of New Beginning, and theologian Gabriel Weiten, both of whom were victims of spiritual and sexual abuse as teenagers, strongly criticized the appointment. They described the news of Rothe’s appointment to the DBK advisory board for victims in December 2024 as “a punch in the gut.”
When they complained privately to the DBK in December 2024, both were rebuffed. “We ran into a wall,” Meuser and Weiten said. “There was stonewalling, appeasement, and silence at all levels of the German Bishops’ Conference, including the chairman of the DBK (Bishop Georg Bätzing).”
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Ping
Another step forward homos in "full-communion" with Rome.
Sounds like the German Bishops are sick of this crap.
slammed?? they should be praised!!
I’m sure the pope is down with it.
I learned from a very old priest I knew, that in the “old days,” (well before Vatican II) our diocese kept a retired boxer on the payroll.
When evidence of sexual or financial wrong-doing among clergy or lay officials in church management came to light, this man would have a talk with them, to show them the error of their ways, encourage them to never do it again, and leave town. No scandal, no lawsuits, with immediate resolution and justice.
In some cases, it seems to be a very clean and simple solution
The Church hierarchy has been permeated with agnostic homosexuals. Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail. Therefore there will one day be a severe reckoning.
“I learned from a very old priest I knew, that in the “old days,” (well before Vatican II) our diocese kept a retired boxer on the payroll.” You’re damn right, a pugilist.
You have GOT to be kidding! Read it again.
Don’t mind me. 😄 I am the one that need to reread the article
[Catholic Caucus] German bishops slammed for naming priest involved in homosexual scandal to abuse victims beard.
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Pass on the lederhosen.
Fox, henhouse.
How so? You don't support sodomites do you?
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