Norway's Church Issues Formal Apology to LGBTQ+ Individuals for ‘Harm, Shame and Suffering’
Against deep red curtains at a well-known Oslo location for LGBTQ+ gatherings, the Church of Norway expressed regret for harm and unequal treatment perpetrated over the years.
“Norway's church has caused LGBTQ+ people harm, suffering and humiliation,” the presiding bishop, Bishop Tveit, announced this Thursday. “This ought not to have occurred and which is the reason I offer my apology now.”
The “discrimination, unequal treatment and harassment” led to certain individuals abandoning their faith, Tveit acknowledged. A worship service at Oslo Cathedral was arranged to follow his apology.
This formal apology took place at a venue called London Pub, one of two bars targeted in the 2022 attack that killed two people and caused serious injuries to nine at Oslo's Pride event. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was given a prison term to a minimum of three decades in prison for carrying out the attacks.
In common with various worldwide religions, the Church of Norway – a Protestant Lutheran denomination that is the most extensive faith community in the country – had long marginalised the LGBTQ+ community, refusing to allow them from joining the clergy or to have church weddings. Back in the 1950s, bishops of the church referred to homosexual individuals as “a worldwide social threat”.
Yet, with Norwegian society turning more progressive, emerging as the world's second to allow same-sex registered partnerships during 1993 and during 2009 the first Scandinavian country to approve gay marriage, the church slowly followed.
During 2007, the Church of Norway began ordaining gay pastors, and LGBTQ+ partners could get married in religious ceremonies starting in 2017. During 2023, Tveit joined in the Oslo Pride event in what was called an unprecedented step for the church.
Thursday’s apology was met with varied responses. The director of a group of Christian lesbians in Norway, Hanne Marie, herself a gay pastor, described it as “an important reparation” and a point in time that “represented the closure of a painful era in the church’s history”.
According to Stephen Adom, the head of the Norwegian Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the apology was “powerful and significant” but was delivered “overdue for individuals who passed away from AIDS … with hearts filled with anguish since the church viewed the crisis as punishment from God”.
Internationally, a few churches have sought to reconcile for historical treatment concerning the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the Anglican Church said sorry for what it characterized as “shameful” actions, even as it still declines to permit gay marriages in religious settings.
Likewise, the Methodist Church in Ireland the previous year issued an apology for “shortcomings in pastoral care and support” to LGBTQ+ people and family members, but held fast in its conviction that marriage could only be a partnership of one man and one woman.
In the early part of this year, the United Church of Canada offered an apology to two spirit and LGBTQIA+ communities, labeling it a renewed commitment of its “pledge to complete acceptance and open hospitality” in all aspects of church life.
“We have failed to honor and appreciate the wonderful diversity of creation,” Michael Blair, the top administrative leader of the church, stated. “We have hurt individuals in place of fostering completeness. We express our regret.”