The Whiskey Vicar Versus Cardinal Woelki

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During the process of following up on an article at CNA concerning the petition calling for the removal of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, this blogger happened to land at a parish attended by one of the signers. The homepage of the Parish of St. Lambertus in Mettmann has the following text header:

In unserer Gemeinde ist jede und jeder herzlich willkommen, egal woher er/sie kommt, was er/sie fühlt und wie und wen er/sie liebt. Jede/r wird in dieser Haltung wertgeschätzt und angenommen. Gottes Liebe macht vor Niemandem Halt.

Everyone is warmly welcome in our congregation, regardless of where he/she comes from, what he/she feels, or how and whom he/she loves. Everyone is valued and accepted in this spirit. God's Love Stops for No One.

It would seem the designer of the introduction felt the need to shout the last phrase.
So, curious to determine the exact ideological orientation of the signers of the petition against Cardinal Woelki, a subsequent search revealed a common orientation among the signers which the reader might have guessed by now. Birds of a feather, etc.

The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.

Fr. Wolfgang F. Rothe, the whiskey drinking author of a book with a title that would suggest his objectives are somewhat convoluted, if not completely dubious, is the petition's initiator.

A blurb from the book site. Note the endorser of Fr. Rothe's book.

Queerness in the Catholic Church | Wanted, Loved, Blessed by Wolfgang F. Rothe

(More from this Author)

Queerness in the Catholic Church is a collection of unique personal stories by several LGBTQIA+ Catholics who share their own experiences within the Church. Although the contributors are based in Germany, their experiences connect and relate to all Catholics who have experienced marginalization, discrimination, and hurt by the Church, yet also know the love, beauty, goodness, and faith of Catholicism.

"The subtitle of this collection of painfully honest essays expresses an aspiration for how the Church should look upon our queer members: wanted, loved, blessed. What a wonderful and very faithful starting point for our way of relating to every member of the Body of Christ."

—from the foreword

Endorsements

"Often people ask me, 'How can you be Catholic and LGBTQ?' The answer is easy: LGBTQ people who have been baptized Catholic are both. But just as often these questions are asked because the questioner has no experience with, and has heard no stories from, LGBTQ Catholics. This eye-opening new volume collects many such stories of both the 'joys and hopes' and 'griefs and anxieties,' as the Second Vatican Council said, of this important community in the Church. Come to know their stories, come to know these people, come to know this community, come to know compassion, come to know God." —James Martin, SJ, author of Building a Bridge

The "Whiskey Vicar" has led "blessings" of same-sex couples. He, himself, identifies as same-sex attracted.

The Church accepts that we, all of us, are sinners, and she calls us to repent of our sins and to keep the commands of Christ. It is one thing to acknowledge our common need for the grace of God and to love the sinner. It is another thing entirely to attempt to bless sinful behaviour,... adultery, fornication, false witness, lust, sloth, etc.

Cardinal Woelki is known for his orthodoxy and pro life stance. It may be that the signers of the petition are saying more about their own ideological orientation and motivation by launching what might very well be an attempted smear campaign against someone who opposes their agenda.

CNA reports that

(t)he German-language petition accuses Woelki of moral corruption and argues that he has lost all credibility in the public sphere and the Church at large after investigations of the cardinal were discontinued after the payment of a 26,000-euro (about $29,700) fine. The petition cites the cardinal’s alleged failure to deal with sexual abuse by Church officials as legal basis for dismissal under canon law.

The Vatican concluded in June 2021 that "after a review of the situation surrounding the reports... (Cardinal) Woelki had made "grave errors" regarding communication but said no evidence had been found that his actions were criminal under secular law (Reuters)." Cardinal Woelki has spoken bluntly about moral issues; not nearly, however, as coarsely as Pope Francis did.

A faithful Catholic reading between the lines of the introduction on the Parish website would do well to avoid the Parish of St. Lambertus.

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