Emmanuel Thomas, with reports from DPA I Friday, April 7, 2023
BERLIN – The German Bishops’ Conference condemned a draconian law passed recently in Uganda that allows for the death penalty to be handed down to homosexuals.
“The persecution must stop – not only in Uganda, Nigeria, Russia, but everywhere in the world,” said Auxiliary Bishop Ludger Schepers of Essen, the Bishops’ Conference’s representative for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
His comments came after Uganda passed anti-gay legislation in March, allowing for long prison sentences or even death for people identifying as LGBTQ.
Alongside penalizing people who perform homosexual acts, the law also punishes those who fail to report attempts at homosexual acts.
“As a church, which unfortunately itself looks back on a long tradition of queer hostility and is just laboriously in the process of overcoming this attitude, we must not remain silent in the face of such measures,” Schepers said.
“Human rights apply to everyone. Only recently Pope Francis made it clear: The criminalization of homosexuality is unjust.”
