German cardinal instructs priests to facilitate same-sex couple blessings

Paul's argument in Romans 1 is not primarily about individual sinners but about the moral trajectory of societies and civilizations that suppress the knowledge of God. The 'giving up' by God is judicial — a withdrawal of restraining grace that allows a culture to pursue its own degradation.

Paul presents same-sex sexual behavior as the visible symptom of a deeper idolatry: exchanging the Creator for the creature. The passage is not obscure or debated in its plain grammatical-historical meaning — Paul condemns the acts explicitly and frames them as the fruit of suppressing truth.

What is extraordinary here is not that sinners pursue same-sex relationships — Romans 1 anticipates that — but that a prince of the church is institutionalizing pastoral blessing over what Paul explicitly terms 'dishonorable passions.' The church is being positioned not to call people out of what Romans 1 describes, but to consecrate it. This is the cultural capitulation Romans 1 diagnoses, now operating inside the visible church itself.

Peter writes that false teachers will arise from within the community of faith — not outside attackers but insiders who hold positions of apparent authority. The word 'secretly' (pareisaxousin) can also be rendered 'smuggle in' — suggesting heresies introduced through legitimate channels under familiar language.

Peter's warning is specifically that these teachers will 'deny the Master' — not by rejecting his name, but by redefining his lordship over human life and sexuality. This was a prophecy about the internal corruption of the visible church.

The handout 'Blessing Gives Strength to Love' uses the sacred language of blessing and pastoral care — familiar, comforting ecclesiastical language — to smuggle in a redefinition of what God sanctions. A cardinal is not an outsider; he is among the highest ranks of church authority, making this a textbook case of false teaching introduced through legitimate institutional channels rather than open rebellion.

Ezekiel 34 is a sustained oracle against Israel's leadership — priests, kings, and elders — who used their office for personal or cultural benefit rather than to guard and feed the flock on God's terms. The indictment is structural: the shepherds served themselves and the demands of their environment rather than the covenant truth entrusted to them.

God holds the shepherds accountable precisely because of their position, not despite it. The pattern — religious leaders with formal authority betraying their flock through self-serving doctrine — is one of Scripture's most recurring judgments.

Cardinal Marx holds the office of shepherd over millions of German Catholics. By directing priests to bless same-sex couples, he feeds his flock what they and the surrounding secular culture hunger for, not what the covenant Word of God provides.

Ezekiel's oracle is structurally identical in pattern: the abuse of the shepherd's office to serve cultural appetite rather than divine truth. The parallel is genuine in actors, motive, and consequence.