Pop singer Patrick Lindner works in a world that almost only wants to sell a good mood.

The gay Bavarian and devout Catholic explained that he felt bad for a long time on Tuesday evening at the presentation of the book “Wanted.

loved.

Blessed” (Herder Verlag).

He had to hide and lived more and more in fear.

"You were trapped in a corset." After coming out in 1999, the end of his career threatened.

He then gradually worked his way back up the field and "regained confidence," he reported.

In October 2020, the 61-year-old Bavarian married his partner.

Martin Benninghoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The Catholic Church still has a firm grip on what was true in the pop world for a long time at least: the idea that queer people don't live the way the Church demands.

About a week after the coming out of many queer Catholic employees as part of the #OutInChurch campaign and a few days before the start of the Synodal Way debate forum, the time for the book presentation was extremely favorable.

At the video conference of the Catholic adult education in Frankfurt, in addition to Lindner, the gay Munich priest Wolfgang Rothe, publisher of the book, gave insights into his life.

He denied the church the moral authority to make sexual regulations – it should stay out of the bedrooms of its employees.

"What the church is doing to queer people is discrimination and exclusion."

The prominent group, moderated sensitively by Christiane Florin from Deutschlandfunk, initially agreed on this point.

The Vicar General of Speyer, Andreas Sturm, also pointed out that the time for internal church reforms was pressing.

"If we don't bag the changes quickly now, we will lose so much relevance that we don't have to worry any more," said the theologian, who, as head of the episcopal ordinariate, is a kind of head of administration for the diocese.

“The church cannot be reformed”

But the conclusions revealed a deep chasm between those who harbor hope for change and those who have long since given up.

Lindner said he hopes "that now we have the strength to change something".

Lisa Kötter, the co-founder of the women's reform movement Maria 2.0, got involved.

No, the church, this “fear-generating machine”, cannot be reformed because power “is organized in a pyramid from top to bottom”.

She criticized the "pinkwashing" of some dioceses, which appeared progressive on the outside, but awaited any change on the inside.

“Rather, we have to ask ourselves the question: who actually owns the church?” Kötter is now looking at it from the outside: she left the church last year.

Speyer Vicar General Sturm admitted that distribution and “money issues” had to be discussed.

Above all, however, he agreed with the view of Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, who said on Sunday evening in the ARD program "Anne Will" that a new labor law of the church does not have to know anything about a person's personal life decisions.

Some of the around 180 listeners to the zoom conference pointed out in the chat that the dioceses could go their own way - and therefore not have to wait for reforms in Rome.

Is this the "revolution" Rothe spoke of towards the end of the event?

The powerful in the church are beginning to see their power waning, the priest said.

And if you think queer people and their ways of life are contrary to God, try to elevate yourself to God.

Kötter also referred to a God that nobody should be afraid of, one who was "not a control freak".

A realization that has not yet reached everyone.