Bishop criticized for praising LGBT ‘pride’ event following deadly attack

(LifeSiteNews) — A German priest has said that a recent attack on an LGBT parade in Germany by an Islamic terrorist should be viewed by Christians as a “call to repentance” while condemning the “atrocities” and calling for the perpetrators to be stopped.

Retired parish priest Father Winfried Abel also criticized local Bishop Heiner Koch over his praise for the pro-LGBT Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade in Berlin following the attack.

On the evening of July 25, a 21-year-old man named Abdul Ballout drove a van into a crowd at the CSD event. After he ran his car into a tree, he got out and started attacking bystanders with a machete. One person, a 65-year-old woman from Poland, was killed in the attack, and about 30 more were injured. The suspect was known to authorities as an Islamic radical with ties to the Islamic State and who had previously been convicted and recently released on probation. He fled the scene and was later hunted down and shot by police.

Abel’s comments have been interpreted among some as endorsing the terror attack on the LGBT “pride” event. However, the priest’s remarks in context reveal that he did not condone the Islamic violence but criticized Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin for praising the pro-LGBT gathering.

In a letter to the editor published in German newspaper Fuldaer Zeitung, Abel wrote:

Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch comments on the terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day with the words: ‘How terrible! To brutally destroy such a joyful and moving celebration. Our prayers are with the victims and their families…’ So a Catholic bishop calls this parade of shamelessness and the ostentatious glorification of perversion a ‘joyful and moving celebration’!? Don’t the shepherds of the Church have a prophetic mandate to interpret such events in the spirit of the Gospel and to put them in their proper perspective?

“The journalist and expert on Islam Peter Scholl-Latour, who died in 2014, always pointed out that the strength of Islam in Europe is due to the weakness of Christianity,” the retired parish priest continued. “Is it not telling that representatives of Islam accuse the once-Christian West of increasing moral decadence and despise Western culture? Does Fulda now also wish to distinguish itself as a center of this ‘anti-culture’? Will the once-magnificent, now severely diminished Corpus Christi procession be supplanted by a grand parade of half-naked bodies?”

“We must draw a distinction here!” Abel wrote. “Rejection of Christianity in no way justifies the brutal and inhuman actions of Islamic terrorists, whose murders and gang rapes are expressions of their hatred. By doing so, they are by no means demonstrating a morality superior to that of Christianity. Such terrorists must be stopped. However, all who still call themselves Christians should view such atrocities as a sign from heaven, as a call to reflection and repentance.”

The Diocese of Fulda distanced itself from remarks made by Abel, stating that it “firmly” rejects an alleged interpretation of a terrorist attack as a possible expression of divine intervention.

“It cannot and must not be tolerated that people in our country feel their very existence is threatened because of their sexual identity,” a statement by the diocese reads.

However, the diocese did not acknowledge the threat of Islam and Islamic terrorism, nor did it defend Catholic doctrine that homosexual acts and transgender ideology are sinful and contrary to the natural law.