Free Republic

Rome’s Failure to Correct Germany’s Bishops has Emboldened Their Pro-LGBT AgendaAs the country’s bishops issue a new document encouraging diversity of sexual identities in Catholic schools, German Catholic sociologist Gabriele Kuby explains the full extent of the crisis.A recently published document from the German bishops encouraging Catholic school pupils to self-identify according to their “sexual identity” is the latest significant departure of the bishops’ conference from the Church’s teaching, re-igniting talk of a possible new, German-born schism.The “orientation aid,” published on Oct. 30, states that Catholic schools should consider “diversity of sexual identities is a fact,” effectively normalizing any pupil...

In 1974, a Trabant -- an old East German car -- was chugging through the Thuringian countryside, a province in the communist German Democratic Republic.In its passenger seat sat Professor Joseph Ratzinger and at the wheel was Father Joachim Wanke, then an assistant at a local seminary -- the only one in the GDR.The two priests, writes Rainer Erice, a journalist for the German radio station Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk Thüringen (MDR), were on a harmless sightseeing tour, taking in the historic cities of Jena and Weimar. It was a moment of relaxation during Father Ratzinger's short visit to East Germany, the...