The German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) has published the document “Created, Redeemed, and Loved. Visibility and Recognition of Sexual Diversity in School”, an educational guide that advocates for the “unconditional acceptance of all sexual orientations and gender identities” in Catholic schools. Far from illuminating education with the truth of the Gospel, the text unreservedly adopts the vocabulary and postulates of gender ideology, in the name of a supposed “pastoral of inclusion.”
The text, signed by the Bishop of Dresden, Heinrich Timmerevers, maintains that the school must be “a place where children and young people find protection from discrimination and experience acceptance in their individual development.” However, what it presents as respect becomes an ideological surrender to the dominant culture, which denies the natural difference between man and woman and seeks to impose a relativist vision of the human person.
Inspired by the Synodal Way and Secular Thought
The document is framed within the resolutions of the German Synodal Way, which in recent years has promoted the “re-reading” of Catholic sexual morality in light of contemporary theories on identity and orientation. This reinterpretation replaces revealed truth with subjective self-perception, emptying Christian anthropology of its content. The text even goes so far as to recommend training teachers on LGBTQ+ issues and adopting “gender-neutral language,” expressions taken directly from the ideological agenda of the United Nations and queer movements.
By asking teachers to “make sexual diversity visible” and avoid “all moral judgment,” the German bishops abandon Christian discernment and legitimize a vision of the human being separated from its Creator. It is a pastoral and doctrinal betrayal that confuses mercy with the approval of error.
Catholic Doctrine Silenced
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that every person deserves respect and compassion, but that homosexual acts “cannot be approved under any circumstances” (n. 2357). None of this appears in the DBK text. Instead, the German bishops appeal to a love without truth, reducing charity to mere emotional acceptance. The document even states that “no sexual-moral judgments will be issued” and that “every human identity reaches its sanctification in Christ,” a phrase that, taken literally, justifies any lifestyle.
The omission of Catholic moral teaching is so evident that the document could be signed by any secularist group defending diversity. Under the rhetoric of inclusion, the denial of the natural order is legitimized and the face of Christian education is disfigured.
Catholic Schools on the Path to Secularization
By transferring gender ideology to the educational sphere, the German Bishops’ Conference puts the identity of Catholic schools at risk. Instead of being places where conscience is formed according to the truth of the Gospel, there is a danger of turning them into spaces of ideological indoctrination. What should be education in truth and virtue degrades into a catechesis of relativist tolerance.
The document also encourages LGBTQ+ teachers to be “visible models” for their students and states that sexual orientation “can no longer be grounds for dismissal or exclusion” following the reform of the Grundordnung in 2022. In other words, what the Magisterium has always considered contrary to the witness of life required for educational service in the Church is normalized within Catholic institutions.
The Confusion of the Faithful and the Duty of Truth
This drift of the Church in Germany is not new, but each new document confirms a process of doctrinal disintegration that alarms many Catholics. The zeal to “modernize” pastoral language has led to a pastoral without faith, where sin and grace are no longer spoken of, but only inclusion, recognition, and diversity. It is the triumph of the spirit of the world over the Spirit of God.
Faced with this confusion, it is worth remembering that true charity does not consist in approving everything, but in speaking the truth with love. As Benedict XVI taught, “Without truth, charity falls into mere sentimentalism. Love becomes an empty shell that is filled arbitrarily. This is the fatal risk of love in a culture without truth” (Caritas in Veritate, n. 3).
The Urgency of Fraternal Correction
A few days ago, Leo XIV published his second apostolic letter, this time dedicated to education. In the document «Designing New Maps of Hope» he states that:
«The Catholic school is an environment in which faith, culture, and life intertwine. It is not simply an institution, but a living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction. Educators are called to a responsibility that goes beyond the employment contract: their witness is as valuable as their lesson.»
The document “Created, Redeemed, and Loved” is not a pastoral aid, but another step in the moral and doctrinal collapse that much of the German episcopate is undergoing. Its authors seem more concerned with pleasing the media than with saving souls —and openly contradicting the Pope—. It is necessary for Rome to intervene to stop this drift that erodes the faith of young people and disfigures the witness of the Church.
Catholic education cannot become a branch of the ideologies of the moment. Its mission is not to promote self-perception, but to lead to the encounter with the truth of Christ, the only one who reveals to man who he really is. And that truth—though it bothers—does not change with fashions.