Germany’s Catholic Bishops Approve Blessings for Pansexual and Transgender Couples
New rules permit Church to employ defrocked priests even if they are cohabiting with a man or a woman
In a bold action during the papal interregnum, Germany’s bishops have published guidelines for blessing “couples of all gender identities and sexual orientations” as well as for clergy who wish to leave the priesthood and cohabit with a male or female partner.
“This departs from the previous categorical rejection of blessings for couples for whom ecclesiastical-sacramental marriage is not possible,” the DBK and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) announced in a press statement released on April 23.
The DBK also published guidelines for clergy who have left the priesthood because of a homosexual or heterosexual partnership, welcoming them to continue in church employment even if they are sexually cohabiting with a male or female partner.
The guidance has been published in the Handbook for Respectful Interaction with Priests Who Leave Office Due to a Partnership, written for priests who no longer wish to remain celibate.
Cohabitating Priests
According to the guidelines:
The basic regulations for church service, adopted in November 2022 , no longer impose any restrictions on the lifestyle of employees. This means that laicized priests can be employed in church service, even if they are not legally married, and regardless of their sexual orientation.
There is no need to institutionally hide laicized priests; rather, they and their life choices can and should be dealt with openly. This reorientation of the Church will thus also be visible and implemented in the way we treat priests who wish to embark on a new path.
Couples not married in the church, divorced and remarried couples, and couples of all sexual orientations and gender identities are naturally part of our society.
Quite a few of these couples would like a blessing for their relationship as “an expression of gratitude for their love and an expression of the desire to shape this love from faith,” the bishops noted.
Germany Goes Beyond Rome
The new guidance claims that it is based on Pope Francis’s declaration Fiducia supplicans, authorized in December 2023, which permits priests to offer non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples, provided that such blessings do not simulate the rite of marriage.
However, the guidelines go beyond what is technically permitted by Fiducia supplicans since it allows blessings not just for same-sex couples but also for transgender couples. The German bishops did not specify particular genders identities or sexual orientations in the document.
The guidance also permits “both ordained ministers and persons with episcopal commission to perform blessings.
The pro-LGBTQ+ Catholic lobbyist group Out in Church criticized the bishops for continuing to offer a “second-class blessing” and said that the guidelines would “ultimately make it clear that conventional teaching is no longer acceptable and must be changed.”
“From a queer perspective, however, Out In Church sees the proposed regulations as a continuation of existing discrimination, once again glossed over with a pink-washed pastoral hypocrisy,” the group stated on its website.
Transgender Invitees to Papal Funeral
Meanwhile, the Vatican included a group of transgender people among the 40 individuals allowed to bid a final farewell to Pope Francis before he was interred in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on April 26.
Bishop Benoni Ambarus, an auxiliary bishop of Rome, said the decision symbolized Francis’s concern for the most marginalized.
LGBTQ+ Catholics have been testifying to the late pontiff’s role in creating a new openness for them in the Church after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) authorized same-sex blessings resulted in parishes all over the world now offering blessings for homosexual couples.
Aaron Bianco, a homosexual Catholic, shared that he was forced to leave his role as a pastoral associate at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in San Diego after severe backlash to his initiation of an LGBTQ+ ministry.
Dialogue Fails After Fiducia Supplicans
In 2023, Bianco met Francis at a theology conference in Rome. Following Fiducia Supplicans, the parish in San Diego now offers an LGBTQ+ ministry led by Tim Foley. “We’ve had several couples receive the blessing. It’s been meaningful not just to them but the whole community… [Pope Francis] made us feel loved, seen, welcomed,” Bianco said.
The pope’s decision to permit same-sex blessings shocked conservative Catholics and ruptured relations with several denominations, including conservative Anglicans in provinces that do not ordain women priests who had moved towards achieving “full communion” with Rome.
The talks, which were scheduled for last September, fell through after Anglicans expressed concern over same-sex blessings, an issue that has plagued Anglican provinces in the West, The Stream reported.
Bishop Ray Sutton, presiding bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the U.S., explained the problem orthodox Anglicans had with the document:
Fiducia Supplicans has resulted in conflicting interpretations of it, as well as polarization within the Roman Church. Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops have even opposed it. The USCCB has offered a ‘sic et non’ (‘yes’ and ‘no’) and mitigating statement in response to Fiducia Supplicans. With our conciliar view of the Church, we see the failure of a Magisterium to maintain the integrity and unity of the Faith.
The problem of “celibate” priests cohabiting with male or female partners continues to be a global problem in the Catholic Church.
End of Clerical Celibacy?
A day after the bishops published their statement on cohabiting clergy, the German bishops’ news agency revealed that Rainer Maria Schießler, a 64-year-old celebrity priest from Munich, had been in a sexual relationship with his maid for 30 years.
“Married people can become priests. Just like unmarried people who wish to remain so. This will be the first step toward ending mandatory celibacy,” Schießler said. Even a “sexually active man living in a marital relationship” can be “a very good priest.
“We are there for each other, will always care for each other, and grow old together,” Schießler says, describing his “special friendship” and stressing that “the celibate life does not mean condemnation to loneliness.”
“We have many cases where this happens. One must also say: Anyone who violates celibacy is not a failure,” he added.
Schießler is well known for his books like The Schießler Bible and Show Up Instead of Leaving the Church, as well as for being an actor who’s appeared on television.
Until now, Catholic priests have been required to resign from their ministry if they marry, but Schießler believes “it’s breaking our necks because we are losing good pastors.” He argues that the rule isn’t a doctrine, but rather a changeable structural law of the Latin-rite Church.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.