A German bishop issued a letter on Noevmebr 2 asking pastors in his diocese to bless same-sex couples.
Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiese-mann said in the Nov. 2 letter to priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers that the blessings – whi-ch he also extended to remarried couples–could take place in chur-ches in the Diocese of Speyer.
“The ceremony must differ from a church wedding ceremony in terms of words and signs and should explicitly reinforce the love, commitment, and mutual responsibility in the couple’s re-lationship as an act of blessing,” he wrote in the 1,000-word letter.
Local Catholic media said that Wiesemann was the first German bishop to make such an appeal, though other prelates have stre-ssed previously that pastors will face no sanctions for blessing same-sex and remarried couples in their dioceses.
Wiesemann, who has led the diocese in southwest Germany since 2008, said he was issuing the invitation after 93% of parti-cipants in the country’s contro-versial “synodal way” endorsed a document calling for “blessing ceremonies for couples who love each other.”
The text called for the crea-tion of a “handout” for use in German dioceses that included “suggested forms for blessing celebrations for various couple situations (remarried couples, same-sex couples, couples after civil marriage).”