Catholic priest and theology professor Fr. Manfred Hauke has to stand trial at a criminal court in Switzerland for publishing an article critical of homosexual clergy.
Katholisch.de reports that the trial against Fr. Hauke started on Monday at the criminal court in Bellinzona, Switzerland. The court case was triggered after the German priest appealed a fine that he received in December 2022.
Fr. Hauke, who teaches theology at the University of Lugano, Switzerland, is accused of violating a ban against “discrimination” and “inciting hatred” against homosexuals for publishing an article as the publisher of the magazine Theologisches in 2021.
The article was authored by Polish priest Fr. Dariusz Oko and highlighted cases of abuse by homosexual priests and bishops and detailed mechanisms used by “homoclans” or a “homomafia” of predatory clerics to avoid accountability.
The priest described such groups as “a colony of parasites” that “cares first of all for itself, and not for the hosts at whose expense it lives” and as a “homosexual plague” or a “cancer that is even ready to kill its host,” among other things. He stressed that “the existence of such powerful clans” attested to by both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI “is an obvious logical, ethical, and dogmatic contradiction to the very essence of the Church and her teaching.”
In May 2022, Fr. Oko and 91-year-old Fr. Johannes Stöhr, the editor responsible for publishing the article in the journal, were sentenced to fines of €3,150 and €4,000, respectively, by a German court.
Fr. Wolfgang Rothe, a dissident, scandal-plagued priest with the Archdiocese of Munich, confirmed that he was the one who reported Frs. Oko, Stöhr, and Hauke to German authorities.
Rothe, who is openly homosexual, is one of the most aggressively outspoken promoters of the LGBT agenda in the Catholic Church in Germany.
In 2004, Rothe was involved in a major Church scandal when he had to step down as vice-rector of a seminary in St. Pölten, Austria, after child pornography and photographs depicting homosexual activity involving seminarians and staff emerged. Photos also showed Rothe kissing a man. The seminary was eventually shut down by the Vatican’s special investigator, Bishop Klaus Küng.
In March 2024, Rothe promoted the anti-Catholic hate group “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” on social media.
In 2021, the Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office declined to investigate Fr. Hauke due to lack of evidence for a criminal offense.
The case against the priest in Switzerland was initiated by a complaint filed by the pro-LGBT group “Pink Cross.”
According to a report by Swiss newspaper NZZ, Fr. Hauke defended the publication by pointing out that the masthead clearly indicated that the opinions expressed in the articles were not identical to those of the editor-in-chief and the publisher. He added that many quotes had been taken out of context.
His attorney, Luigi Mattei, explained that homosexual priests had not been criticized in general but that the analysis concerned certain groups and lobbies of clergymen who had become a kind of mafia organization within the Catholic Church and, thus, a danger. Fr. Oko had often quoted Pope Francis and also campaigned for a synod on homosexuality to be held, the lawyer added.
The verdict in the Bellinzona trial against Fr. Hauke is scheduled to be announced next Monday.