The Archdiocese of Hamburg’s radical new guidelines, which will be binding for all Catholic schools, contradict the Catholic faith and promote homosexuality and gender confusion to children.
HAMBURG, Germany (LifeSiteNews) -- The Archdiocese of Hamburg in Germany has published new guidelines for sexual education promoting homosexuality and transgenderism.
“With a new conceptual framework for sex education in Catholic schools, the Archdiocese of Hamburg is sending a clear signal in favor of contemporary, value-oriented, and scientifically sound sex education,” the archdiocese wrote in its press release.
The guidelines, entitled “Male, female, diverse: Concept framework for sex education at Catholic schools in the archdiocese of Hamburg,” will be binding for all Catholic schools in the diocese.
However, the document blatantly contradicts Catholic teaching on sexual ethics, promotes homosexuality and gender ideology, and states that human beings have sexual experiences from birth.
“The aim [of the guidelines] is to empower children and young people in education and upbringing to shape their lives with increasing self-determination and personal responsibility with regard to their gender identity and sexual orientation,” the document states.
The concept says that it draws from “findings from the human sciences” and “modern theology,” as well as documents and discussion from the heretical German Synodal Way.
READ: German Synodal Way approves text calling homosexual acts ‘not sinful’ and ‘not intrinsically evil’
The concept of sexuality used in the guidelines is based on the work of Uwe Sielert, professor emeritus of "sexual sciences" at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, who defines sexuality as “general life energy that makes use of the body, is fed from a variety of sources, has many different forms of expression, and is meaningful in many different ways,” in radical contradiction to the Catholic faith.
Sielert is the founder of the so-called “sexual education of diversity” that is used in schools throughout Germany. He was a student of Professor Helmut Kentler, the most celebrated German “progressive” sexual education proponent who, as investigations after his death confirmed, ran a massive pedophile network in Germany. With the help of government authorities in Berlin, he put many delinquent boys and adolescents in the “care” of homosexual and pedophile men, who abused them for years.
READ: German documentary exposes state-funded network allowing pedophiles to ‘take care’ of boys
Sielert, and by extension the guidelines by the Archdiocese of Hamburg, views humans as sexual beings from birth until death. According to this view, even infants have “sexual experiences” as the guidelines state: “It is important to remember that humans are sexual beings from the very beginning. The positive experience of gentle touch that infants feel during personal care is one of their first sexual experiences.”
The text also spouts gender ideology throughout the document, stating, for example, “Sexuality is part of identity development, which includes experiencing one's own person: Who am I as a boy or man, as a girl or woman, or as a non-binary person?”
Moreover, the guidelines depict homosexual relationships as equal to heterosexual marriage: “Humans are designed to interact with others and to give and receive closeness, security, trust, and love, which is expressed, among other things, in sexuality, which we do not understand exclusively as heteronormative sexuality between a man and a woman.”
“The love between same-sex partners is also an expression of friendship, reliability, loyalty, and support in life,” it continues.
The document also claims that “gender identity and sexual orientation cannot be learned, but are predetermined.”
The leadership of the archdiocese shows its open disregard for Church teaching, citing heterodox moral theologian Stephan Goertz, who said:
In order to bridge the gap between doctrine and life, I believe that the Catholic Church should show itself to be an institution capable of learning. An institution that (1) learns to deal with its own tradition in a self-critical manner, (2) considers what follows from the special dignity of human beings for the shaping of sexuality, and (3) takes seriously the fact that the experiences of the faithful are a source of Christian moral teaching.
The archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Heße, is known for his heterodoxy. He is a supporter of the heretical German Synodal Way and has spoken in favor of "women’s ordination" and changing Church doctrine on homosexual acts.
Catholic teaching on sexualityThe Catholic Church has always taught (including the post-Vatican II magisterial texts) that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” (Persona Humana 8), sinful, and contrary to the natural law.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church furthermore states that homosexual acts “close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”
The Church also teaches that the conjugal act within marriage between a man and a woman is the only legitimate form of sexuality (cf. Familiaris consortio 11).
The Church has always held that human beings are created as either male or female (cf. Gen. 1:27) and that everyone should accept his or her sex (cf. CCC 2333). The Church has therefore always strongly opposed gender ideology and transgenderism, including in a recent document by the Congregation for Catholic Education published in 2019 called “Male and female he created them.”
