Church of Norway Makes Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’
Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, Norway's national church offered an apology for discrimination and harm it had inflicted.
“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals pain, shame and significant harm,” the lead bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, announced on Thursday. “It was wrong for this to take place and this is why I apologise today.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” resulted in certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at the cathedral in Oslo was planned to come after the apology.
The statement of regret was delivered at the London Pub establishment, one among two bars attacked during the 2022 violent incident that took two lives and left nine seriously injured during Oslo’s Pride celebrations. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who expressed support for ISIS, received a sentence to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the murders.
Like many religions around the world, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the biggest religious group in Norway – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ individuals, refusing to allow them to become pastors or from marrying in religious ceremonies. During the 1950s, church leaders referred to homosexual individuals as “a global-scale societal hazard”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1993 and by 2009 the initial Nordic nation to approve gay marriage, the religious institution eventually adapted.
During 2007, Norway's church began ordaining LGBTQ+ clergy, and LGBTQ+ partners have been able to have church weddings from 2017 onward. During 2023, the bishop took part in the Pride march in Oslo in what was described as a historic moment for the religious institution.
The apology on Thursday was met with differing opinions. The head of a network for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, who is also a gay pastor, described it as “a significant step toward healing” and a moment that “finally marked the end of a difficult period within the church's past”.
As stated by Stephen Adom, the director of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the statement was “powerful and significant” but had come “overdue for individuals who lost their lives to AIDS … with deep sorrow in their hearts as the church regarded the epidemic to be God’s punishment”.
Globally, a handful of religious institutions have attempted to make amends for their actions concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Church of England said sorry for what it characterized as its “shameful” treatment, although it still declines to authorize same-sex weddings in church.
Likewise, Ireland's Methodist Church the previous year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but held fast in the view that marriage should only represent a union between a man and a woman.
Several months ago, Canada's United Church issued an apology toward Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals, characterizing it as a renewed commitment of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We have failed to honor and appreciate all of your beautiful creation,” Rev Michael Blair, the general secretary of the church, remarked. “We have wounded people in place of fostering completeness. We apologize.”
