Update: German bishops to sell company that publishes porn

This caused  a sensation when it hit the news a couple weeks ago.  Now, something is being done about it:

The Catholic Church in Germany says it will act “without delay” to sell its stake in a publishing company that offers pornography among its products.

“We cannot earn money during the week with what we preach against on Sundays,” Cardinal Joachim Meisner told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper Nov. 22.

The Weltbild Publishing Group is one of Germany’s largest publishers, with an annual income of $2.2 billion dollars, nearly 6,500 staff and book stores on the main street of many German towns and cities. However, it also publishes and distributes nearly 2,500 pornographic titles, largely through their Internet sites.

At present, 12 of Germany’s 27 dioceses own just over 24 percent of the shares in the publishing firm. Some dioceses have already divested themselves of their stock in recent years, including the Archdiocese of Cologne which is led by Cardinal Meisner.

Today’s announcement comes only weeks after Pope Benedict XVI criticized the German bishops for their investments.

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