Rev. Winfried Abel, a retired priest of the Fulda diocese, has often appeared in conservative Catholic media outlets and has repeatedly condemned the festivities associated with Christopher Street Day. His latest comments came in a letter to the editor published in the Fuldaer Zeitung.
While Abel condemned Islamic extremism, he also called Christopher Street Day a form of “uncivilization” and described the attack as a “signal from heaven.”
The diocese quickly rebuffed Abel’s comments, issuing a written statement affirming its support for Christopher Street Day and its role in promoting inclusion and welcoming the LGBTQ+ community.
The diocese’s statement reads:
“As a church, we believe that every human being is created in the image of God and possesses inalienable dignity. From this arises the mandate to treat all people with respect, consideration, and love — regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Christopher Street Day stands for the cause of raising awareness of the dignity of all people and for standing up against exclusion and violence.”
The diocesan statement took on extra significance because of the fact that the city of Fulda will be holding its own Christopher Street Day festival this year on August 29th.
Tobias Farnung, editor of Fuldaer Zeitung, also condemned Abel’s letter:
“Anyone who describes a terrorist attack on an event where people are attacked, injured, and even killed as a “signal from heaven” and a “call to reflection and repentance” crosses a line.
“This transforms the condemnation of an event into a religious interpretation of a violent crime as a divine message. The victims are thus retrospectively stripped of their dignity: their suffering suddenly no longer appears as the result of inhumane violence, but as a supposedly deserved warning from above. This is a profoundly disturbing form of argumentation.”
Abel’s comments are adding to fears within the LGBTQ+ community that old wounds have been reopened. According to Katholische.de, Uta Bolze, an emergency chaplain in the Archdiocese of Berlin, said many in power are overlooking the victims of the Christopher Street Day attack.
Bolze praised a vigil held the Sunday after the attack, which she said began the healing process, and called for continued attention to those affected — or who generally identify as LGBTQ+ — as many have experienced forms of violence and rejection since the attack.
“It is important that we mourn with them and for them,” Bolze said. Her remarks reflected a broader sentiment that, since the attack, attention has focused on the perpetrator rather than the victims.
Christopher Street Day is an LGBTQ+ Pride festival that suffered a terrorist attack in Berlin on July 25. A man believed to be part of a terrorist organization affiliated with the Islamic State drove a van into a crowd at Tiergarten Park, killing one person and injuring more than 30 others.
The attack drew swift condemnation from Muslim associations, the Central Council of Jews, and Catholic bishops alike. In its aftermath, German Catholic commentators have grappled publicly with the church’s own record on LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Catholic Bible Society director Katrin Brockmöller noted that discrimination within church circles still occurs, often justified as God’s will, while Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Heße publicly backed the city’s Christopher Street Day march, stating that hatred and exclusion are incompatible with a Christian view of humanity — prompting calls from Catholic LGBTQ+ advocates for the church to deepen its outreach to queer believers.