Expert: 90% of Germany’s Bishops Subscribe to Views on Human Sexuality that Depart From Church Teaching

If this 'relapse into paganism' is to end, says Catholic sociologist Gabriele Kuby, the faithful must turn to Christ, be courageous and make sacrifices.

Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz, Germany, taking part in a television panel on the channel SWR, June 20, 2025.

The imposition of anti-Catholic sex education guidelines on Catholic schools in the German Archdiocese of Hamburg that I reported on for the National Catholic Register last week is by no means an isolated case.

According to the German Catholic writer and sociologist Gabriele Kuby, almost 90% of Germany’s bishops support such an approach which involves teaching children that homosexual acts and gender ideology are normal, acceptable and should be encouraged.

Two German bishops have recently indicated their backing for such sex education by stepping forward to boldly denounce the Church’s moral teaching on sexuality.

Bishop Peter Kohlgraf of Mainz has stated that biblical statements about homosexuality should not be read as timeless truths. “Today I will always understand texts from Holy Scripture that speak about homosexuality in light of their historical context, and not simply derive timeless, eternal truths from them," he said during a June 20 television discussion.

Meanwhile, Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers of Dresden-Meissen recently called for a change in Church teaching on gender identities and sexual orientations. “This requires a new way of thinking, which is expressed in Church teaching and the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” the bishop said in an interview.

Bishop Timmerevers said he was uncertain about many issues regarding gender, but hoped that Church teachings in the field of anthropology and gender theory would change. “This requires us to engage in scientific debate. This also means that this debate is not an ideology-driven science, but rather a genuine struggle for knowledge and truth.”

Kuby made it clear the extent to which German bishops have drifted from Church teaching and apostolic tradition in her 2023 book Fürchte dich nicht du kleine Herde - wenn die Hirten mit den Wölfen tanzen (Fear Not, Little Flock: When the Shepherds Dance with the Wolves). This became especially apparent during Germany’s 2019-2023 Synodal Way.

The final chapter of her book serves to underline the stark reality of the situation, and acts as a rallying cry for all the faithful to be courageous, make sacrifices, and resist what she calls a “de-moralisation of sexuality” and a “relapse into paganism.”

The chapter is reproduced below by the author’s kind permission:

Hotline to the Holy Spirit

What caused King David’s downfall and led to the sword never departing from his house? (2 Sam 10) The desire for another man’s wife. What deprived King Solomon of his wisdom? Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines who “turned his heart away.” (1 Kings 11:3) What cost John the Baptist his head? That he told the king it was not right to take his brother’s wife. (Mark 6:18) It has devastating consequences when sexual desire takes over, then as now.

The de-moralization of sexuality is a relapse into paganism, a return of the gods Baal and Astarte. Children were sacrificed to the idol Moloch. In our time, it is 73 million per year through abortion, and millions through abuse, pornography, and forced prostitution. The prophet Elijah risked his life to expose Baal as a false god in a dramatic showdown and to demonstrate the power of the true and only God, so that the people would recognize “that you, Lord, are the true God and that you turn their hearts back.” (1 Kings 18:37)

Today, the false gods exercise their power through the political and financial elites of this world, who have at their disposal the media manipulation machines of mass consciousness. We can escape their power simply by following Catholic sexual morality: sex only within marriage between a man and a woman. It is a lie of the sex-addicted world that it is unhealthy, even impossible, not to satisfy sexual urges at any time. Sigmund Freud knew that culture arises through the sublimation of sexual drive. It is a conditio sine qua non – with repentance and forgiveness always included – to belong to the little flock that God himself cares for. Whoever lives this way can invest their life force in building sustainable structures for their own life and for society, and become a light in the darkness of the present time. It is an investment in the future that will bear unforeseeable fruit in the next generations, for only in healthy families do healthy children thrive.

Let us ourselves grow in the virtues to which we want to raise our children: faith in God, the hope that God turns everything to good, love that is shown in sacrifice. For this, we need prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. One vice leads to another. Likewise, no virtue can fully develop without the others. We need prudence to distinguish good from evil. We need a clear perception of justice to give each his due: to God, to our neighbour, and to ourselves. To do good and just things with perseverance, we need fortitude. Rootless, psychologically unstable people are ruled by fear and must go with the flow. Cowardice keeps them in line. They become immoderate in their substitute gratifications. Oh, how much we need shepherds who are prudent, just, courageous, and temperate! We would so like to listen to their voice – in persona Christi.

More than ever, we need a listening heart in the turbulence of these times, a hotline to the Holy Spirit. All this means nothing other than fulfilling God’s ever-same demand to walk the path of holiness.

When should we speak, when should we be silent? When does God want us to confess him, even if it costs sacrifice? Consider what Jesus says:

“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.” (Matt 10:32-33)

Questioning and listening must be practiced; answers are rarely commands of the kind: “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt” (Matt 2:13), but rather a gentle inner urging, for God always leaves room for our free decision.

Overcoming fear and cowardice must also be practiced in small things, in everyday life. Everything leads to a final decision for Christ. There is no reason to think we will be able to do this if we usually hide in the mainstream.

There are no strategies and comfort zones that could give us security. The world is shaken by pagan fear. The powerful play their marching music on this piano and thus prepare the way for the Antichrist. From Genesis to Revelation, from the first to the last book of the Bible, God says to man: DO NOT BE AFRAID! We lose the fear of the heathen and gain the trust of a child of God when we accept God as our Father and Mary as our Mother.

The world is dotted with places of Marian grace. Many of these places arose because the Mother of Jesus appeared there, often to uneducated children in remote places like Lourdes, Fatima, Garabandal... Whoever was granted the grace to see the Mother of Jesus was captivated by her beauty; never had he or she seen a more beautiful woman. According to Catholic teaching, she is the sinless one, the Immaculate, the all-pure. Only purity gives beauty an inner radiance that penetrates the heart of the beholder. She knew who she was: the handmaid of the Lord, which is why she spoke her eternal FIAT MIHI, let it be done to me as you have said, whatever the unforeseeable consequences might be. The handmaid of the Lord knew that the Mighty One had done great things for her and that all generations would call her blessed – all generations, up to this day. (cf. Luke 1:46-49)

We today make the ego into a god, soil purity, despise humility, consider the feminine as inferior, the mother as dispensable, self-giving as submission. It does not prove itself. So let us learn from the Mother of Jesus to do the will of God, to become receptive to his guidance, to place the child at the centre, and to persevere under the cross.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

This God became man, allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, and rose again on the third day. Was that in vain? No, it was not in vain; he will come again in glory. There will be great distress before that, he told us, so that when it comes, we will not doubt that he is about to complete his plan of salvation.

Nothing has changed: We will die, and we die only once. The greater our willingness to sacrifice, the greater our freedom.