MAINZ, Germany (LifeSiteNews) — German Bishop Peter Kohlgraf has responded to an allegation that he and other German bishops are “not Catholic” in light of their support for ideologies which oppose traditional Church teachings, and implied that the Catholic faith is not about truth.

The bishop of Mainz delivered a homily on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, arguing that being Catholic must be viewed in a new light today. He lamented that the Gospel was often reduced to a few controversial issues as a mark of true belief. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary inspired him to “think about what it means to be Catholic today.”

“Again and again, I read about myself and other bishops in Germany that we are no longer Catholic,” he stated. “I can assure you that this is nonsense.”

Kohlgraf said that some would define the Catholic faith as the belief in an unchanging truth, untouched by contemporary developments. He appeared to disagree with the fact that the Church proclaims unchangeable truths that transcend the spirit of the age.

“Those who think differently [i.e., those who deny unchanging truth] are confronted with the claim to be right,” he lamented.

He also rejected an understanding of Catholic identity that is defined by demarcation from others.

A Catholic is not someone “who beats others over the head with the truths of faith and moral teaching like a rag, but someone who tries to understand other people,” the bishop said. “And then the nature of preaching will change. It will not only teach, but also enter into conversation with others.”

“We do not stand for an abstract truth, but for a faith that must be evident and reflected in everyday life,” he stated.

“Being Catholic also means being able to broaden one’s horizons and open oneself up,” Kohlgraf said. “It is part of today’s ‘zeitgeist’ to consider one’s own insights and opinions as absolute. For me, being Catholic also means accepting that I am not always right, but that the opinion of others is necessary for me.”

Contrary to Kohlgraf’s suggestions, being Catholic does mean accepting that the Catholic Church, established by Jesus Christ, proclaims infallible and unchanging truths, which all Catholics must assent to.

Regarding the infallibility of the Church’s teaching on faith and morals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states:

In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a “supernatural sense of faith” the People of God, under the guidance of the Church’s living Magisterium, “unfailingly adheres to this faith.” The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium’s task to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. (CCC 889-890)

READ: ‘Homosexuality is not a sin’: German bishop contradicts basic Catholic teaching

Furthermore, the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius from the First Vatican Council confirms the necessity of the Catholic faithful to assent to definitive teachings of the Church: “Further, by divine and Catholic faith, all those things must be believed which are contained in the written word of God and in tradition, and those which are proposed by the Church, either in a solemn pronouncement or in her ordinary and universal teaching power, to be believed as divinely revealed.” (Dei Filius, Chapter 3)

Dei Filius also makes clear that Catholic teaching cannot change due to an alleged “deeper understanding” in accordance with the spirit of the age:

For, the doctrine of faith which God revealed has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding. (Dei Filius, Chapter 4)

The view that Catholic doctrine can change with the times was also condemned by PopePius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) and by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (1993).

The pro-LGBT Bishop Kohlgraf is known for his radical heterodoxy and support for the German Synodal Way. While the bishop complained about others saying he and other openly heretical German bishops were “not Catholic,” he argued in 2022 that polemic criticism of the German Synodal Way “cannot be Catholic.”