Blessings for same-sex couples were yesterday given the green light by the German Synodal Way.
Delegates voted by 176-14, with 12 abstentions, for a five-page document called “Blessing ceremonies for couples who love each other”.
Of the German bishops who voted, a total of 38 were in favour of the text and nine were against, while 11 of them abstained.
The document request that bishops “officially allow blessing ceremonies in their dioceses for couples who love each other but to whom sacramental marriage is not accessible or who do not see themselves at a point of entering into a sacramental marriage”.
It says: “This also applies to same-sex couples on the basis of a re-evaluation of homosexuality as a norm variant of human sexuality.”
The synod also voted overwhelmingly to accommodate the ideology of gender into the Catholic Church, including the changing of baptismal records to reflect a person’s preferred self-identified choice.
They also voted for the normalisation of lay preaching and also agreed to ask the Holy See to “re-examine” the discipline of priestly celibacy.
Delegates hesitated over plans to press ahead with the roll out of synodal councils at national, diocesan and parish levels, however, following warnings from the Vatican that the model was incompatible with the structure of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the bishops’ conference, told journalists afterwards that the votes would serve as a springboard to further reform.
He said: “The Church is visibly changing, and that is important.”
The implementation text “Dealing with gender diversity” was voted through by 96 per cent of 197 voting delegates, with 38 bishops supporting it and only seven voted against it.
A large number of voting delegates abstained, however, after a decision was taken to show how each of them voted on the issue.
The resolution demanded “concrete improvements for intersex and transgender faithful”.
Besides the fabrication of birth certificates, the measures included a removal of the practice of the Church to considering a change of gender identity as an obstacle to the selection of candidates for the priesthood and other pastoral and ministerial roles.
The proscription of “external sexual characteristics” serving as key justification for “accepting a man as a candidate for the priesthood” would open the door to the ordination of both transsexual candidates and to women.
The resolution also demanded the mandatory education for priests and church employees to “deal with the topic of gender diversity”.
According to the Church Militant website, a small minority of bishops voiced opposition to the measure during the debate.
They included Auxiliary Bishop Stefan Zekorn of Bistum Münster who said he could not support a text based on gender ideology.
The major was in favour, however, including Gregor Podschun, the head of the Federation of German Catholic Youth, who said gender ideology was “a scientific fact”, the denial of which was driving people to suicide.
“The patriarchy needs to be destroyed,” said Podschun.
Following the vote, delegates stood to applaud and some unfurled rainbow flags.
The priestly ordination of women was endorsed explicitly in a separate resolution, which was opposed by just 10 of 58 bishops and which called for the German Church to advance the practice internationally.
The vote in favour of same-sex blessings represents an act of open defiance by the German Church because it comes less than two years after the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith declared that “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex”.
Many cardinals and bishops are among the Catholics around the world who are loyal to the Magisterium and who have warned the German Church consistently that its actions could produce a schism.
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