The auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, Thomas Maria Renz, explained in a guest article for the Catholic online news magazine Kath.net that consent to the protection of unborn life is decisive for the Catholic faith:
“Thus the question of the protection of life becomes a question of denominational affiliation: you cannot be Catholic unless you clearly and unequivocally profess the unrestricted right to life from conception!”
In his text, Renz points out that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sanctity and sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death “has been testified to with crystal clarity since apostolic times and has never been questioned–at least not by anyone who wanted to remain Catholic even while doing so.”
With his contribution, the auxiliary bishop also makes concrete reference to the demand of the president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Irme Stetter-Karp. The latter had only recently called for universal access to abortion. Renz writes further:
“Those who want to be and remain Catholic will therefore naturally demand a nationwide offer of diverse help for pregnant women in conflict situations, but not a nationwide offer of ways to get rid of their own offspring.”
Auxiliary Bishop Renz thus joins the criticism of Catholic lay groups, which have also criticized Stetter-Karp for counteracting the Catholic position on the issue of the protection of life. In this sense, a Catholic layman had launched a petition calling on Stetter-Karp to resign (on which IFamNews has reported).