Catholic labor law allows remarriage and same-sex marriages

A same-sex marriage or a new marriage after the divorce are no longer grounds for termination for the approximately 800,000 employees of the Catholic Church and Caritas in Germany. As the German Bishops' Conference announced on Tuesday in Bonn, the General Assembly of the Association of German Dioceses passed a corresponding new version of church labor law with the required majority. Each diocese must implement this individually for the rules to become legally binding.

In contrast to general labor law, Catholic labor law has hitherto also intervened in private life. This has repeatedly led to layoffs and transfers over the past few decades. For example, a chief physician at a Catholic hospital in Düsseldorf led a year-long legal battle because he had been fired because of a new marriage.

Same-sex marriages were also considered a breach of loyalty or a reason for termination - the "Out in Church" initiative made public a number of cases at the beginning of the year where this had led to massive disadvantages for Catholic employees.

“Diversity in church institutions is explicitly recognized as an enrichment like never before,” said the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) in Bonn. "All employees, regardless of their specific tasks, their origin, their religion, their age, their disability, their gender, their sexual identity and their way of life can be representatives of God's unconditional love and thus of a church that serves people." The only one The condition is “a positive basic attitude and openness towards the message of the gospel”.

The new so-called basic order of church service reforms the basic order that has been in force since 2015. Recently, the core area of ​​private life has escaped the reach of a Catholic employer. According to the new law, affiliation to the Catholic Church is only a criterion for recruitment if it is necessary for the position in question – for example for a pastor. However, leaving the Catholic Church remains an exclusion criterion for employment or even a reason for dismissal. The same applies to anti-church activities.