Church of Norway Makes Sincere Apology to LGBTQ+ People for ‘Pain, Shame and Significant Harm’
Set against crimson theater drapes at a leading Oslo LGBTQ+ venue, Norway's national church issued a formal apology for hurtful actions and exclusion caused by the church.
“The national church has inflicted LGBTQ+ individuals shame, great harm and pain,” the lead bishop, Bishop Tveit, stated on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I offer my apology now.”
“Unequal treatment, harassment and discrimination” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, the bishop admitted. A church service at the cathedral in Oslo was scheduled to come after the apology.
The apology was delivered at the London Pub, one among two bars involved in the 2022 violent incident that killed two people and injured nine people severely throughout the Oslo Pride festivities. A Norwegian of Iranian origin, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was sentenced to a minimum of three decades behind bars for the killings.
Similar to numerous global faiths, the Norwegian Lutheran Church – a Lutheran evangelical community that is Norway’s largest faith community – had long marginalised LGBTQ+ people, denying them the opportunity 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”.
However, as Norway's society grew more liberal, becoming the second in the world to permit registered partnerships for same-sex couples in 1993 and by 2009 the first in Scandinavia to allow same-sex marriage, the church gradually changed.
During 2007, the Norwegian Lutheran Church commenced the ordination of homosexual ministers, and gay and lesbian couples have been able to get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. In 2023, Tveit joined in Oslo’s Pride parade in what was noted as a first for the church.
The Thursday statement of regret received a mixed reaction. The leader of an organization for Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and an occasion that “signaled the conclusion of a dark chapter in the church’s history”.
For Stephen Adom, the leader of Norway’s Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology represented “meaningful and vital” but arrived “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish because the church considered the crisis to be God’s punishment”.
Worldwide, several faith-based organizations have tried to make amends for their actions towards LGBTQ+ people. Last year, England's church apologised for what it referred to as “shameful” actions, even as it persists in refusing to permit gay marriages in religious settings.
In a similar vein, Ireland's Methodist Church in the past year issued an apology for “inadequate pastoral assistance and care” toward LGBTQ+ individuals and family members, but stayed firm in its conviction that marriage should only represent a bond between male and female.
In the early part of this year, Canada's United Church offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, characterizing it as a reaffirmation of the church’s “commitment to radical hospitality and full inclusion” throughout every area of church life.
“We did not manage to celebrate and delight in the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals rather than pursuing healing. We express our regret.”