“As Christians, we want to be able to give all people a home, which is why it is so important that there are these safe spaces for queer people in our churches,” says one German Catholic, Manuel Rios Juarez. He and two fellow pastoral workers were recently designated as contact persons for queer-sensitive pastoral care in the Diocese of Hildesheim.
Announcing these new appointments, the German diocese published a description of the pastoral care the designated ministers will provide (via Google Translate):
“As a contact person, you can provide support, for example, if a lesbian couple registers their child for baptism, a trans person wants to celebrate their transition with a blessing ceremony, or parents of a non-binary child are looking for pastoral care. Your pastoral care also includes a commitment to building a mindful culture for the life situations in which those being accompanied find themselves. . .Above all, the three representatives are available to answer requests from parishes and institutions for queer pastoral services.”
In order to build a culture of welcome within the diocese, these pastoral workers will also be responsible for equipping other church staff by training them in queer-sensitive pastoral care and responding to questions as they come up.
“This begins with the way people are addressed and continues with the development of a culture that prevents discrimination,” says the diocesan announcement.
Members of this new commission come from various ministries and regions within the diocese. Manuel Rios Juarez, quoted above, is a a school pastoral care officer.
Michael Hasenauer is a university chaplain in the city of Lüneburg.
And Linda Menniger is a hospital chaplain in the city of Hannover, who commented that the commission’s work “touches on many questions that I am familiar with from my everyday life as a hospital chaplain, especially when dealing with transgender and intersex people.”
These appointments are the fruit of longstanding work for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Diocese of Hildesheim, led by Bishop Heiner Wilmer SCJ, who has publicly called for “significant changes” to Catholic teaching on sexuality, and supported non-discrimination for LGBTQ+ church workers.
The diocese describes the new commission as a continuation of existing outreach efforts that had been undertaken by a local Dominican priest. According to the diocesan statement:
“The three commissioners are building on the work of the Brunswick Dominican Father Hans-Albert Gunk, who was available for many years in the Diocese of Hildesheim as a contact person for pastoral discussions with homosexual people. At the same time, the development of queer-sensitive pastoral care will broaden the view of how to deal with gender diversity, especially trans and intersex people. The commission is also a continuation of a central demand from the Hildesheim Declaration ‘Blessing for this World’ from March 2021: ‘People are equal parts of the church, regardless of their sexual identity. God’s blessing is for them and their partnerships – because it applies to all loving relationships without exception.'”
At the core of the commission’s work is a common impulse, which new member Hasenauer described simply: “As a church, we want to be a place where all people are welcome.”