Same-sex blessing controversy underlines deep divisions within German Catholic Church

Catholic priest Herbert Ullmann spent most of July on a cycling holiday around Lake Constance in southern Germany. Throughout it all, he had a nagging feeling that something was brewing back home.

Returning a fortnight ago to his western German parish in Mettmann, half an hour east of Düsseldorf, Fr Ullmann found out he was headline news. The reason? The response of his church superiors to his “mass of blessing for all loving couples” last March.

It was a ceremony with a “concentrated, calm, warm atmosphere”, he recalls, with one obviously same-sex couple among around 25 heterosexual couples attending.

“It was about blessing and showing respect for all forms of responsible partnerships among people of goodwill,” he told The Irish Times.

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While other German Catholic bishops have turned a blind eye to similar services in their dioceses, many widely reported in the media, things worked out differently for Fr Ullmann.

Someone attending the ceremony in March tipped off the Vatican, he believes. How is so he sure?

“Rome knew details about the ceremony that were in no newspaper report,” said Fr Ullmann. “There is always a small number of people in any parish with their ‘deep concerns’ who creep to Rome. It’s less than five per cent, but they are very spiteful.”

Exactly a month after the March ceremony, the Holy See intervened through the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament – the oversight body for Catholic liturgy and sacraments.

It contacted the archdiocese of Cologne, responsible for the parish of Mettmann. In turn the archdiocese general vicar Guido Assmann reminded Fr Ullmann of Catholic teaching, renewed in 2021, which excludes same-sex couples from any blessing or sacraments because homosexual acts – with no prospect of procreation – are “intrinsically disordered”.

“Individuals can always be blessed regardless of disposition and life status,” added the general vicar in a letter. Catholic priests should stay clear of any such blessing services as they were likely to “cause confusion among the faithful about the teachings of the church”.

For Fr Ullmann his service, agreed with the local parish committee, was a pilot project that responded to the real needs on the ground of his parishioners. The priest told his superiors he hoped that such outreach events might even help lessen departures from the church.

A record 522,000 left Catholic Church in Germany last year. With 20.9 million members, the Catholic Church in Germany has lost more than a tenth of its following – nearly 2.4 million people – in the last decade.

After the story became public this month, Fr Ullmann said his vow of obedience to his local archbishop, Cardinal Woelki of Cologne, precludes him from carrying out such blessing services in the future. But he promises that “this issue isn’t over yet”. His parish is working on new plans and “they know they can count on me pastorally and theologically”.

The campaign group #OutinChurch has accused Cardinal Woelki of operating a “church of fear”, breaking a promise he made in March not to sanction anyone for such blessing ceremonies. Cardinal Woelki is a leading opponent in Germany of liberal Catholics’ reform demands – including an end to celibacy, the ordination of women and blessing services for homosexuals.

Pope Francis has so far pushed back against German reform efforts and, in October, will open a gathering of world church representatives to discuss reform and renewal in a so-called “synod on synodality”.

In a statement, the archdiocese of Cologne said Cardinal Woelki was “aware of the deep desire of same-sex couples for a church blessing and has great understanding for their struggle”.

If the world synod changes its position on same-sex couples, a spokesman said, Cardinal Woelki “would of course follow suit”.

For Fr Ullmann, a trained historian, the row over his blessing service reveals less about him and much more about senior Catholic clergy.

“We have bishops and cardinals, many of whom with little or no pastoral experience and no grounding in people’s real concerns,” he said. “And the bureaucracy in Rome . . . is increasingly saying ‘it’s immaterial who the pope is under us because our system functions as it is’. They have a panicked fear of any kind of synodal understanding of Catholicism.”