(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo the Great impressively told the faithful of his time: “Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning.” The current canon law says the same thing in CIC, can. 209: “The Christian faithful, even in their own manner of acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church.”

No bishop has the right to dispense from this. Not even the Pope can do so, because otherwise he would dissolve the Church. Nevertheless, the bishops in Germany have dispensed their lay employees from living according to their true nature. To this end, they amended the “Basic Order of Church Service” of November 22, 2022. Article 7, paragraph 2, now states the following with regard to lay employees and the relevance of their personal lives for employment by the Church: “The core area of private life, in particular relationships and intimacy, remains exempt from legal assessment.”

This means that people can live together before and outside of marriage, remarry civilly, be polyamorous, polygamous, or same-sex couples: it is irrelevant for employment by the Church. They are still allowed to teach and preach in the name of the Church. All German dioceses have adopted this into their own law. The German bishops have thus seriously violated their official duties.

For CIC, can. 392 states:

§1. Since he must protect the unity of the universal Church, a bishop is bound to promote the common discipline of the whole Church and therefore to urge the observance of all ecclesiastical laws.

§ 2. He is to exercise vigilance so that abuses do not creep into ecclesiastical discipline, especially regarding the ministry of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and the veneration of the saints, and the administration of goods.

In Switzerland, dioceses are not typically employers under civil law, unlike in Germany. This task is performed by the so-called “Kirchgemeinde” (local church community) and “Landeskirchen” (state church), which are parallel structures created by the state. On December 4, 2025, the Zurich “state church,” the most financially powerful in Switzerland, amended its “employment regulations.”

With regard to lay employees, § 4a now states: “For employment in the ministry, the core area of private life remains unaffected. Relationships, sexual orientation, and lifestyle, especially the intimate sphere, remain exempt from legal assessment and do not constitute criteria for employment.”

The Bishop of Chur, Joseph M. Bonnemain, in whose territory the canton of Zurich lies, gave his prior consent to this dispensation of Church employees from living according to the Sixth Commandment. His alter ego, the vicar general responsible for Zurich, Canon Luis Varandas, has declared to the “Landeskirche” (state church) that he “agrees with the present partial revision of the employment regulations.”

A Church that no longer wants to oblige its employees to live according to God’s commandments has capitulated. And it is clear: if something no longer applies to employees, it no longer applies to all Christian faithful. In Germany and in the canton of Zurich, observance of the Sixth Commandment is therefore optional.

The background to this capitulation by the Church in German-speaking countries is the Church tax system. According to the bishops’ interpretation, maintaining this system seems to require the Church to submit to the societal mainstream. In order to remain acceptable to the majority, the Church is supposed to conceal or even deny everything that is offensive to post-Christians and that could jeopardize the enjoyment of ecclesiastical privileges.

The Pope has remained silent in public about the change to the Basic Law of 2022 in Germany. In the case of the former Pope, this is not surprising. What Pope Leo XIV intends to do is not known. In any case, he must take note that silence means consent. And the previous non-policy has resulted in other parts of the universal Church being infected, as is now evident in Switzerland.

The approach in Germany and now in the Diocese of Chur offers another lesson. In both countries, clergy are exempt from the dispensation to live according to the Sixth Commandment (Basic Order, Art. 7, para. 2, sentence 4; Employment Regulations, § 4a, sentence 2). From a civil law perspective, this is arbitrary and discriminatory. It will be interesting to see when this issue becomes relevant in state courts. From a theological perspective, the distinction made by the bishops is revealing. It implies that the sacrament of marriage entails fewer obligations than the sacrament of ordination. Or, to put it another way: lay people are second-class citizens. If they do not live as they should, it is irrelevant. This is a new form of clerical class consciousness. Clericalism is celebrated by bishops, of all people, who otherwise turn up their noses at it.

As far as Switzerland is concerned, the story is not yet over: on November 17, 2025, the bishops’ conference published a non-binding paper entitled, “Assessment of the situation in Swiss dioceses with regard to the relationship between the episcopal mandate and the lifestyle of priests, deacons, and pastoral workers.”

Perhaps because under Pope Leo XIV the bishops are no longer so sure of their cause, or perhaps because Switzerland also consists of French- and Italian-speaking parts where many priests and laypeople still follow the universal Church, this paper does not go as far as the German Basic Order of 2022. In the search for a compromise between the teaching of the Church and what the bishops of German-speaking Switzerland desire in imitation of the Church in Germany, a solution has been found in the Bergoglian individual case.

As is well known, this effectively abolished the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, in that now – by whomever, with whomever, on whatever theological basis – a “spiritual discernment” can be made. This then leads, quite remarkably, to those who are divorced and remarried under civil law being able to receive the Eucharist with a clear conscience. For there are arguments for everything. Good old Jesuit probabilism serves us well in this case. Since then, a Church teaching that applies to everyone has existed only on paper, but no longer in reality. There are now only individual cases.

This method is now being applied by the Swiss bishops to the lifestyle choices of lay workers. Not forgotten is the second Bergoglian principle, according to which even irregular cohabiting couples contain positive elements that should be valued in a “discernment.”

The bishops write: “The teaching of Pope Francis has emphasized that people in partnerships and family forms that do not correspond to Catholic tradition and doctrine realize values that deserve respect and recognition.” (The Mafia also lives social cohesion and cares for the well-being of its members, which are undoubtedly values that deserve our respect and recognition).

Based on these premises, the Swiss bishops conclude that every employee’s life situation is “unique.” Therefore, concerning life situations, “one can only act justly in accordance with the Gospel if one considers them holistically. Two people can do the same thing, and it is not the same.” Two plus two no longer equals four in this ecclesiastical parallel universe.

This must be taken seriously and appreciated as an alternative fact. This post-factual understanding of truth is also consistent with the fact that the aforementioned bishop of Chur, as vice-president of the bishops’ conference, supports their paper promoting the case-by-case approach. At the same time, however, he explains that in Zurich, the individual case does not count. Rather, the lifestyle of lay employees is irrelevant in principle.

The criterion for the episcopal oracle of “discernment” in individual cases is stated as “the personal willingness to gradually adapt one’s own situation to the Gospel.” In the case of a heterosexual couple living in cohabitation, this could still be a criterion if marriage is envisaged. But how can someone who is remarried under civil law be a little less married under civil law every day? And how should a same-sex couple become a little more heterosexual every day?

Does anyone seriously believe that people in post-Christian society will rethink their views because the Church has declared part of its doctrine of faith and morals to be optional? On the contrary: they must come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has now caught up with its modernity deficit and is singing along with the post-Christians. The autonomous implementation of what is accepted in mainstream society has been the policy of Protestant religious communities for 200 years. You can’t blame them for that. After all, they don’t have a pope.