A major Catholic event in Germany will feature “BDSM” and lesbian “Catholic” groups.
The German “Katholikentag” (Catholics Day) will take place from May 14 to May 16 in Würzburg and will prominently feature several heterodox groups.
The Katholikentag is a major multi-day event held in Germany every two years. It is organized by the lay organization, the Central Committee for German Catholics (ZdK), in collaboration with the local diocese. Tens of thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics from across Germany and Europe regularly attend the event, which features church services, group prayers, discussions and debates, cultural activities, and much more.
Among the participants is the “Ecumenical Working Group on BDSM and Christianity,” which will have its own booth at the “Church Mile.”
On its website, the group writes, “We are Christians from various denominations who explore eroticism and sexuality, particularly in the realm of sadomasochistic sexual preferences. We want to bring this topic out of the realm of taboo. We don’t have to darken the bedroom because of God. And rest assured: God loves you, even if you continue browsing our pages right now.”
“We want to provide information about consensual BDSM from a Christian perspective,” the group states. “We want to help people develop their own views on this topic.”
Also represented at the Church Mile is the “Network of Catholic Lesbians,” which describes itself as a “spiritually independent, diverse, Catholic, and feminist network of women who love women.”
Inflicting pain on another person, as is the practice in BDSM, clearly violates God’s design of the marital act and human dignity.
Fr. Hugh Barbour wrote the following for Catholic Answers on the issue: “The key to upright sexual desire and pleasure is the personal good of the one with whom we engage in sexual activity. This one should be our lawful spouse of the opposite sex, and our sexual activity should be a sign of the recognition of our union as man and woman in a personal way.”
“Abusive gestures or postures or clothing do not represent a true and free relation between the sexes; rather, they act out sexually other psychological aspects of the relationship of the sexes that suffer from the exaggerations and misperceptions of fallen human nature.”
“So, simply put, bondage, sadism, dominance, and masochism (BSDM) are abuses of the simple equality in procreation and union in licit pleasure that should belong to every legitimate human couple,” Barbour wrote.
The priest continued: “A Catholic who is tempted by these thoughts must first of all avoid all entertaining of them (most people would have little idea of these things unless they had found them online, for example) and meditate on the mysteries of the Lord’s own conception and birth and bodily life by praying the holy rosary.”
While the inclusion of the heterodox group at the Katholikentag has caused outrage and ridicule by faithful Catholics, no Catholic bishop, including Bishop Franz Jung of Würzburg, who co-hosts the event, has commented on the matter so far.