Church of Norway Makes Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Shame, Great Harm and Pain’
Against crimson theater drapes at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for harm and unequal treatment it had inflicted.
“Norway's church has inflicted the LGBTQ+ community shame, great harm and pain,” bishop Olav Fykse Tveit, the church leader, declared during a Thursday event. “This ought not to have occurred and that is why I offer my apology now.”
“Harassment, discrimination and unfair treatment” had caused certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to follow his apology.
This formal apology took place at the London Pub establishment, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who swore loyalty to Islamic State, received a sentence to no less than 30 years in prison for the murders.
Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, refusing to allow them to become pastors or to marry in church. Back in the 1950s, the church’s bishops referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.
But as Norwegian society became increasingly liberal, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and during 2009 the first in Scandinavia to approve gay marriage, the church gradually changed.
During 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. Last year, Tveit participated in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as a historic moment for the religious institution.
Thursday’s apology elicited a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization representing Norwegian Christian lesbians, Hanne Marie Pedersen-Eriksen, herself a gay pastor, called it “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a dark chapter in the history of the church”.
According to Stephen Adom, the head of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “strong and important” but had come “not in time for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts because the church considered the epidemic as divine punishment”.
Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their actions regarding LGBTQ+ individuals. Last year, England's church apologised for what it described as “shameful” actions, though it still declines to allow same-sex marriages in church.
Similarly, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year apologised for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” regarding the LGBTQ+ community and their families, but stayed firm in its belief that matrimony must only constitute a partnership of one man and one woman.
Earlier this year, the United Church based in Canada delivered a statement of regret to Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ groups, labeling it a confirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” in all aspects of church life.
“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the church's general secretary, remarked. “We have wounded people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”