German Bishops’ Gender Document Exposes Ecclesial Apostasy Rooted in Modernism
Catholic News Agency reports that three German pseudo-bishops – Oster of Passau, Voderholzer of Regensburg, and Woelki of Cologne – have distanced themselves from the German Bishops’ Conference document promoting “diversity of sexual identities” in schools. The 48-page text urges Catholic educational institutions to embrace “queer” ideology under the guise of pastoral care, demanding acceptance of self-proclaimed gender identities and using inclusive language that contradicts Catholic anthropology.
Naturalistic Anthropology Masquerading as Pastoral Care
The document’s foundational error lies in its uncritical adoption of secular gender ideology, declaring that “the diversity of sexual identities is a fact” requiring institutional affirmation. This contradicts the Church’s immutable teaching that sexus est in anima (sex is in the soul) as articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica I, q.93 a.4 ad 1um), meaning biological sex constitutes an essential element of human identity willed by God. The text’s insistence on respecting “self-identification and self-designation” constitutes formal cooperation with the cultus hominis (cult of man) condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925), which warned against removing Christ from “private, family, and public life.”
Hermeneutic of Rupture in Moral Theology
Bishop Timmerevers’ foreword reveals the Modernist poison infecting the document: “Teachers should present disputed questions of sexual morality as such, allowing students to form their own judgments.” This directly violates the condemnation of proposition 22 in Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane (1907), which rejected the notion that “dogmas are not truths of divine origin but interpretations of religious facts by the human mind.” The Church has always taught moral absolutes, as confirmed by the Holy Office under Pius XII (1952): “No circumstances can make an intrinsically immoral act subjectively good or defensible” (Denzinger 3918).
Episcopal Cowardice in the Face of Apostasy
While Oster correctly notes the document “promotes an anthropology that effectively desacralizes the Christian understanding of the human person,” his protest remains trapped within the conciliar paradigm. These pseudo-bishops fail to recognize that their very participation in the German Bishops’ Conference – which produced this heretical text – implicates them in apostasy according to canon 2314 of the 1917 Code. As Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors (1864): “Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion” (Proposition 18) – a heresy now recycled through gender ideology.
Omission of Supernatural Finality
The document’s complete silence about the telos (purpose) of human sexuality – procreation and spousal unity within sacramental marriage – demonstrates its anti-Catholic essence. Pius XI’s Casti Connubii (1930) explicitly condemned “those who presume to reform God’s plan by promoting perverse ideas about sexuality” (Denzinger 2231). Nowhere does the German text mention the mortal sin of sodomy (1 Cor 6:9), the necessity of chastity (Catechism of St. Pius X), or the eternal consequences of unrepentant sexual immorality (Rev 21:8).
Structural Apostasy of Conciliar Church
Voderholzer’s complaint about an “agenda being pursued in our name” ignores that this heresy flows inevitably from Vatican II’s embrace of religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) and false ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio). As the Holy Office under St. Pius X warned: “The principal instrument of Modernists is to agitate for reforms in philosophy and theology under pretense of dialogue and pastoral adaptation” (Lamentabili Sane, Introduction). The German document constitutes practical application of these condemned principles, reducing Catholic education to social engineering while abandoning fides et ratio (faith and reason).
Condemned by Precedent
This gender document directly violates multiple condemned propositions from Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors:
– Proposition 55 (“The Church ought to be separated from the State“) by surrendering education to state-imposed ideologies
– Proposition 64 (“Progress demands transforming Christian doctrine into liberal Protestantism“) through LGBTQ+ normalization
– Proposition 77 (“Catholicism shouldn’t be the sole state religion“) by rejecting Catholic anthropology’s primacy
The three dissenting pseudo-bishops remain complicit by refusing to denounce the German Synodal Path’s broader apostasy. Their limited protest serves only to maintain illusion of opposition while the conciliar sect demolishes Catholic doctrine brick by brick. As Our Lord warned: “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up” (Mt 15:13). Only return to integral Catholic tradition – rejecting Vatican II and its false shepherds – can restore authentic Catholic education.
Source:
3 German bishops oppose school guide on ‘diversity of sexual identities’ (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 24.11.2025