By Maike Hickson
 |
| Bishop Vitus Huonder |
A Swiss Catholic bishop who was sued earlier this month by
homosexual activists for defending the Catholic Church's teaching on
homosexuality has made a second public apology for not putting quotes from the
Old Testament he used in sufficient context. Bishop Vitus Huonder explained
that he did not intend to invite violence against homosexuals but to uphold the
teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality. Bishop
Huonder said:
“I wanted to show that in [the book of ] Leviticus, there is
to be found a drastic rejection of homosexual acts and that we as Christians
have to be aware of it. When within the Church there is now a search for a
“pastoral change,” then it is appropriate to reflect – and without censorship –
upon this question in the context of the Old Testament – at least also in order
to make sure that we see what Christ, what the New Testament, and what the
Tradition of the Church had brought to us.”
Despite his humble self-accusation of deficient comment on
the quotation of the Old Testament, and his apology for presenting some
passages from the Old Testament without sufficient explanation, he is being
harshly criticized by Swiss media. And by some of his brother bishops in the
nation. The Swiss Bishops' Conference's website kath.ch even published an intro
to a secular news report which characterizes Bishop Huonder's comments as
offensive to Jesus. A link to the full report has a photo which shows a
grafitti on a wall next to the Bishop's residence, saying: “Dear Vitus, I am
done with you! Your Jesus.”
In the face of harsh rejection by the media and even some
fellow bishops, Bishop Huonder received courageous and touching support from
Catholic laymen in Switzerland and Germany.
Dr. Gerd Weisensee, a Swiss pro-life activist and President
of the Swiss Association of Journalists of Francis de Sales, defended Huonder
in a press release from his organization. Weisensee insists that Bishop Huonder
did not call for violence against homosexuals. The idea that it is forbidden to
quote from the Old Testament “which is a Holy Text also for the Jews,” is in
the eyes of Weisensee “nearly absurd, even if one rejects the content and its
interpretation.” Weisensee sees the law suit against Bishop Huonder –initiated
by Pink Cross – to be “a problematic development.” He wonders: “When will an
organization of homosexuals sue the Opera house of Zurich because it displays
the 'Magic Flute,' where Papageno and Pamina praise man and woman as the most
noble, even divine bond?” Dr. Weisensee concludes: “Pink Cross conducts itself
in the same unjustly fundamentalist and anti-liberal manner as those circles
against which the organization ostensibly fights.”
On August 11, the Austrian Catholic website kath.net
published an Open Letter to the President of the Swiss Bishops' Conference,
Markus Büchel, who publicly rebuked Bishop Huonder for his defense of the
Faith. The letter was penned by Michael Hageböck, a man who moved his family to
France in order to legally homeschool his six children. He is a member of the
conservative lay-initiative, Forum Deutscher Katholiken (Forum of German
Catholics), and the headmaster of a Christian school in Freiburg (Breisgau), in
Germany.
Hageböck's open letter is entitled: “I Wish You Would
Apologize to Bishop Huonder!” In the midst of the pressures coming from the
State to accept behaviors which contradict God's Commandments, Hageböck says,
the President of the Swiss Bishops conference seems to be defending these
promiscuous forces, rather than the loyal Catholic ones fighting the deeper
cultural battle.
In the midst of turmoil, this German layman expects from
bishops a strong defense, and that they place themselves “in a protective way –
in front of the children, and thus contradict this planned and forced
ideologization! To force everybody to accept such a super-dogma in a pluralistic-liberal
society is, in my view, also a scandal.” Hageböck bemoans that, today, it is
hard to find Catholic bishops “who even defend the Church's [moral and
doctrinal] positions, instead of [dubiously] re-interpreting them.”
Hageböck insisted that Bishop Huonder himself, during his
highly criticized talk in Fulda, Germany, did not speak in a harsh way about
homosexuality. Hageböck was there and remembers the talk well, saying:
“He proclaimed, in a fatherly and loving way, the words of
Holy Scripture. That the media would stab him in the back, was to be expected.
However, that you, Your Excellency, would have the need to secure the applause
from the false side, is sad! Nobody needs such an adapting Church. She would
thereby make herself become superfluous”.
The Catholic layman concludes his Open Letter with the
request that Bishop Büchel apologize to Bishop Huonder and even take him as a
good example for “how one should today proclaim the Catholic Faith with love
and clarity, without being cramped, and without any false and obsequious ingratiation.”
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