Catholic Priests in Germany Bless Gay Couples, Defying Pope – The Wall Street Journal

“It’s time to be visible in the church,” said Holger Woltering, whose 2017 civil marriage with Lennart Woltering was blessed for the second time on Thursday in the town of Geldern in northwestern Germany. The ceremony was recorded for streaming on the internet. “It’s really, really time to change these rules,” he said.

The ceremonies were organized as a response to a statement in March by the Vatican’s doctrinal office, approved by Pope Francis, prohibiting blessings of gay relationships on the grounds that God “cannot bless sin.”

German Catholics saw that document as aimed particularly at them. Since last year, German bishops and laypeople have been holding a national synod that is considering a number of potential changes to Catholic life, including liberalized teaching on sexuality and the ordination of women.

According to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center, 93% of Catholics in Germany think that society should be accepting of homosexuality, compared with 76% in the U.S. and 6% in Nigeria.

Conservative bishops in Germany and the U.S. have warned that the synod could foment a schism in the church, but a spokesman for the German bishops’ conference says that such fears are unfounded and that “Germany is an integral part of the universal church.”

Retired German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller last month called the May 10 blessings “an enormous scandal, a terrifying sign of heresy, schism and the collapse of the church.”

The president of the bishops’ conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, has said blessings “are not suitable as an instrument of church-political manifestations or protest actions” but he hasn’t threatened disciplinary action. The Vatican didn’t reply to requests for comment.

So far the blessings have come off without incident, said Klaus Nelissen, one of the organizers of the campaign, though one priest in Munich said he received hostile emails before he led a blessing ceremony Sunday afternoon.

The Rev. Wolgang Rothe said the emails threatened him with the “wrath of God” and that one said: “You will die and go immediately to hell.”

Four policeman guarded the Munich event in the Church of St. Benedict, in which about 30 couples, about 10 of them gay or lesbian, took part, Father Rothe said. Church employees in robes held up rainbow banners as the priest read from the Gospel.

“It was a great experience, we felt God’s blessing,” Father Rothe said. “Heavens were open. All people were happy.”

Among those blessed by Father Rothe were Almut Münster and Christine Waltner, a child psychotherapist and a teacher in Munich, who have been a couple for more than three years though they are not civilly married.

“It was a very special moment for us, which brought us even closer together, and which made a feeling of being welcome in the church, which I normally do not have,” Ms. Münster said.

The Rev. Christian Olding, who blessed the Wolterings’ relationship in 2017 and again late last week, said that the next debate will be about the possibility of same-sex marriage within the church, a question on which he says he is still undecided.

“We cannot do the same sacrament for relationships that are able to create a new life and for relationships that are biologically not able to do this, but I think if we say the foundation of the sacrament is love and the love of God, also same-sex relationships…have got a right to get this point discussed,” Father Olding said.

But conservatives worry that such distinctions will be easily lost.

“I suspect that blessings for homosexual couples in the liturgy create the danger of confusion between sacramental marriage and a blessing for different kinds of couples,” said Helmut Hoping, a professor of theology at the University of Freiburg.

Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com