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“important today”
As a child he was abused by the bishop. Today he fights as a priest for a modern church
Wolfgang Rothe will speak at a Catholic service with blessing of homosexual couples as part of a nationwide campaign in May 2021 in the Church of St. Benedict
© Felix Hörhager/DPA/Picture Alliance
As a child, he was himself molested by a bishop and never received an apology. Today, priest Wolfgang Rothe tries to modernize the church and criticizes it relentlessly.
As Pope Benedict XVI. when he was questioned as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, he denied all allegations. But after the Munich abuse report became public last week, which cited decades of sexual abuse in the diocese, Benedict was able to remember it. He was at a meeting about a priest who was later convicted of child molestation.
Father Wolfgang Rothe was also abused as a child by a church representative. He never received an apology for that, he reports in the podcast “Today important” (#197): “To this day I’m still waiting for the redeeming words that some responsible person in the church once said to me: ‘I believe you, it does I’m sorry about what was done to you.” And he also expects such words from Pope Benedict XVI to the faithful.
A morality that is immoral at its core
Too slow, too sluggish – the Catholic Church hardly develops further. Father Wolfang Rothe sees the sexual morality propagated in the Church as a major problem: “The Catholic Church represents a very rigid sexual morality in which the exercise of sexuality is only permissible within a marriage that is valid according to the Church’s understanding.”. In doing so, she represents a morality that is deeply immoral, “because it completely disregards the reality of people’s lives and also measures people by standards that are actually against their nature.”
The institution must adapt to the people
In an interview with “Today important” host Michel Abdollahi, priest Wolfgang Rothe pleads for the church to adapt instead of forcing people to adapt to the church: “People are the way they are and that’s exactly how they should be. While the Church repeatedly feels that it has to set standards that do not allow these people to be as they are.” Priest Rothe therefore also took part in the blessing of homosexual couples last year, under the motto #lovewint, and welcomes the coming out of 125 church representatives: inside on Monday: “So far we have mostly been lone fighters, now the whole thing seems to be one to develop a mass movement.” Not only since the Munich abuse report, many people are considering leaving the church or have already left. Understandable, says priest Wolfgang Rothe. Nevertheless, he is almost combative: “I would also feel shabby if I turned my back on the church and left the field to those who insisted on the previous norms.”
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