Cardinal Reinhard Marx has expressed the view that homosexual couples can receive a Church blessing “in the sense of a pastoral accompaniment” in the Catholic Church, but not in a manner that resembles marriage.

In an interview with the German magazine Stern, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising was asked, “What do you do when a homosexual couple asks you for an episcopal blessing?” Marx responded: “I can bless them both in the sense of pastoral accompaniment, we can pray together. But theirs cannot be a marriage-like relationship.”