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How should the church develop?
Catholic youth in front of Cologne Cathedral (archive image)
Photo: Oliver Berg / picture alliance / dpa
A youth organization is currently discussing the possibility of writing God with gender asterisks in the future in order to represent more diversity.
The spelling would then be "God *". Another option that is currently being discussed is "God +", that is, with a plus sign that could also be read as a cross. According to the Catholic Young Congregation (KjG), all of this should make it clear that God cannot automatically be thought of as an old white man with a beard.
"We have not yet made a decision, but we definitely want to change something," said Rebekka Biesenbach, the spiritual director of the (KjG), the dpa news agency. "The central question is: What can we do to bring the image of God, which is very masculine in many places, back into the diversity it deserves?" In spoken language, you could say the asterisk or the plus if necessary. "We are currently still forming a judgment on this." Decisions could be made at the next federal conference at the end of March / beginning of April in Odenthal in the Bergisches Land.
There are several large youth associations in the Catholic Church.
The KjG is considered to be politically more left-wing and already speaks of Catholics in its press releases, for example.
According to its own information, it represents around 80,000 members aged around 9 to 25 years.
bbr / dpa
