Church of Norway Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Community for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’
Against red stage curtains at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church expressed regret for discrimination and harm caused by the church.
“The church in Norway has inflicted LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, declared on Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and this is why I apologise today.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to some to lose their faith, Tveit recognized. A religious service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.
The statement of regret was delivered at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars involved in the 2022 shooting that resulted in two deaths and caused serious injuries to nine throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. An individual of Iranian descent living in Norway, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades in incarceration for carrying out the attacks.
In common with various worldwide religions, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – historically excluded LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity to become pastors or to marry in church. In the 1950s, the church’s bishops characterized LGBTQ+ persons as “a worldwide social threat”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, becoming the second in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships back in 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
Back in 2007, Norway's church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and LGBTQ+ partners were permitted to have church weddings since 2017. In 2023, the bishop took part in the Oslo Pride event in what was noted as an unprecedented step for the church.
The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The head of a network of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, a lesbian minister herself, referred to it as “a significant step toward healing” and an occasion that “represented the closure of a difficult period in the church’s history”.
As stated by Stephen Adom, the leader of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “strong and important” but arrived “too late for those among us who died of Aids … carrying heavy hearts since the church viewed the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.
Internationally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their past behavior towards LGBTQ+ people. During 2023, the Anglican Church apologised for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.
Likewise, the Methodist Church located in Ireland the previous year expressed regret for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and their relatives, but stayed firm in the view that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.
In the early part of this year, the United Church based in Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, describing it as a confirmation of the church's “dedication to welcoming all and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We have not succeeded to rejoice and take pleasure in the beauty of all creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We caused pain to people instead of seeking wholeness. We are sorry.”