Bishop Oster critiques German bishops’ text on LGBT+ identities in schools, warning it erodes Christian view of redemption and human personhood.
Newsroom (12/11/2025 Gaudium Press )In a pointed 4,000-word critique published Nov. 10, Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau has publicly distanced himself from a new 48-page document issued by the German bishops’ conference, asserting that it deviates profoundly from authentic Catholic teaching on the human person, creation, and redemption.
Titled “Created, Redeemed, and Loved – Visibility and recognition of the diversity of sexual identities in schools,” the text was released Oct. 31 by the conference’s commission for education and schools, chaired by Bishop Heinrich Timmerevers of Dresden-Meissen. It responds to resolutions from Germany’s controversial “synodal way” (2019-2023), which called for re-evaluating Church doctrine on homosexuality and gender diversity, amid reports of increasing numbers of students in Catholic schools identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or “queer.”
The document draws on an online survey of over 2,000 students, teachers, and parents, which found a “vast majority” supported addressing sexual identity diversity, with about 20% reporting experienced or observed discrimination against LGBT-identifying individuals. It outlines five guidelines—fostering holistic development, respecting human dignity, promoting justice, assuming responsibility, and keeping “the question of God alive”—along with recommendations for various school roles and a glossary defining terms like “heteronormativity,” “rainbow family,” and “sexual self-determination.”
Bishop Timmerevers, in his introduction, described Catholic schools as places to deepen “personal self-awareness and holistic development… especially from a Christian perspective,” emphasizing pedagogical and pastoral guidance rather than a “comprehensive moral-theological analysis” of queer lifestyles.
Bishop Oster, a 60-year-old Salesian of Don Bosco appointed to Passau in 2014 at age 48 and renowned for his digital evangelization to youth, rejected this framing in his evaluation, “Do we still believe what we believe?” “Even though the cover of the booklet says ‘The German bishops,’ the text does not speak on my behalf,” he wrote, highlighting its failure to articulate a Christian anthropology.
Oster, one of four German diocesan bishops who openly opposed the synodal way, argued the document implies all sexual diversities are inherently redeemed without reference to sin, grace, or self-realization in Christ. “Nowhere is the term ‘redeemed’ explained… basically, all people in all their diversity… are already redeemed,” he observed. “There is no mention anywhere of the task of human self-realization in Christ and through Christ.” Instead, it prioritizes “findings from the human sciences,” which, by methodology, lack access to faith-based prerequisites like relationship with God, need for redemption, and conformation to Christ.
Particularly troubling to Oster is the text’s affirmative stance on transgender identities among youth, presented as a “phenomenon that naturally arises” without critical examination or warnings against hasty affirmation. He noted recent restrictions on surgeries or hormone therapies for transgender-identifying minors in the U.K., Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, rendering the document “significantly outdated” and failing to protect “vulnerable young people” needing “especially sensitive support.”
Oster revealed he reviewed an early draft in summer, proposing additions on Christian identity, only to face “essentially negative” responses. The draft sparked “very controversial” debates in the bishops’ permanent council, with some urging abandonment, according to the German Catholic news agency KNA.
At root, Oster sees a broader anthropological crisis: “We are living in a time when the decisive debates… revolve around anthropology, the doctrine of man.” For Catholics, this means viewing humans as “sacramental beings” through whom the infinite God reveals Himself. He contrasted this with a prevalent “developmental perspective” assuming Church boundaries—on women’s ordination or blessings for unmarried couples—will shift, warning that altering anthropology leads to “a different doctrine of revelation, of the sacraments, of salvation… and ultimately even to a different understanding of the Triune God.” The document, he concluded, advances “a desacralized understanding of human beings.”
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Maria Renz of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, the commission’s deputy chairman, defended the text Nov. 4 in Die Tagespost as aimed at opposing discrimination, while stressing its limits: It cannot offer a “comprehensive, humanities-based presentation” of adolescent sexual identity developments, a “volatile and controversial topic among experts.” Renz urged distinguishing “acceptance of those who feel differently,” essential for Christian schools, from “naive approval” of transient youthful feelings.
Oster’s critique echoes divisions over April guidance from the bishops’ conference and lay Central Committee of German Catholics on blessings for unmarried and same-sex couples, rejected by dioceses like Passau as exceeding the Vatican’s 2023 Fiducia supplicans. Pope Leo XIV granted Oster a private audience Sept. 8 to discuss Germany’s ecclesial situation.
Since 2022, Oster’s diocese has offered pastoral support for queer-identifying Catholics, underscoring his commitment to accompaniment within doctrinal fidelity. His intervention underscores ongoing tensions in the German Church between pastoral outreach and magisterial integrity.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from The Pillar
Related Images:
