Catholic organisations in Germany have welcomed changes to their Church’s employment rules, meaning that staff will no longer face being fired for remarrying without an annulment or for forming gay unions.
The German bishops’ conference has announced that it has changed the Church’s labour law to reflect “multiple changes in legal practice, legislation and society”, and will no longer require the Church’s 750,000 employees to reflect Catholic teaching in their lifestyles.
“It’s good the Church will now see people as individuals, rather than just generically,” said Theodor Bolzenius, spokesman for the Central Committee of German Catholics. “But it’s also positive that people working for the Church will be treated differently, depending on their positions, rather than all being required to follow the same rules. Nurses at Catholic hospitals are clearly not in the same category as teachers of religion at Catholic schools,” he said.
Mr Bolzenius said current Church rules had posed “major problems”, especially for non-Catholic employees at German hospitals, half of which are Church-owned. He added that all Catholic institutions depended heavily on non-Catholic workers and had frequently been taken to court for alleged discrimination under German civil law.
Freiburg-based Caritas, whose 590,000 staff make it one of Germany’s largest employers, also welcomed the reforms.
“The bishops’ decision shows how intensively our Church is now dealing with people’s real lives,” said Fr Peter Neher, Caritas president.
“There will now be a differentiated approach to the duties of loyalty, and attempts to find a proper balance between the Church’s proper ministry and the individual situation of Church employees, at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of people who divorce and remarry or commit to registered civil partnerships encounters public incomprehension,” he said.
Church staff, including non-Catholics, would still be expected to work “in the spirit of the Church” and “refrain from anti-Church behaviour”, said a statement from the German bishops’ conference, while those involved in pastoral and catechetical work could face dismissal for “serious breaches of loyalty” such as by promoting abortion or xenophobia.
However, those who remarried without an annulment after divorce or contracted civil partnerships would face dismissal “as a last resort” only if their actions affected “the Church’s integrity and credibility” or caused “a significant nuisance”. Trade unions would be allowed access to religious institutions to “promote membership” and improve “Church working conditions”.
The document was approved by two-thirds of Germany’s 27 diocesan bishops suggesting, said the German Catholic news agency KNA, that there had been “some opposition”.
Although the German constitutional court last October upheld the right of German Churches to operate their own internal employment rules, public opinion “reacted badly”, KNA reported, when doctors were fired for remarrying or teachers “sacked for lesbian unions”.
Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne told KNA the revised labour law would not “negate official Church teaching that marriage is indissoluble” but would bring Church rules “into line with actual practice”.
He said: “People who divorce and remarry are rarely fired – the point is to limit the consequences of remarriage or same-sex unions to the most serious cases. The need for a re-evaluation of our labour [regulations] has been much talked about as part of our ongoing dialogue, and our aim now is to respond to our society’s changing circumstances.”
Announcement of the reforms comes amid preparations for the October Synod on the family at the Vatican, where many German bishops are expected to argue for a more liberal cChurch approach to marriage and family issues.
A bishops’ conference report in December suggested most of the country’s 66 bishops believed divorced and remarried Catholics who had not received an annulment should be allowed to receive Communion.
In March, German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticised claims by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich-Freising that the German Church stood ready to “preach the Gospel in its own original way” rather than being seen as “a branch of Rome”, and to “go down new paths” and “pursue its own pastoral care programme” regardless of the synod outcome.
The Central Committee of German Catholics voted unanimously in May to demand the blessing of same-sex partnerships and second marriages at the synod, as well as a “reassessment of contraception methods” and “a clear positioning against the still-existing exclusion of homosexuals”.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.