The Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends at the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Catholic missionaries in China from an Italian religious order meeting, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2020. (Credit: AP Photo/Antonio Calanni.)
ROME – A top aide to Pope Francis said there’s a need for dialogue with the German bishops after a recent vote in favor of blessing same-sex unions, insisting that the move does not align with official Catholic doctrine.
“A local, particular church cannot make a decision like that which involves the discipline of the universal church,” said Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, on Monday.
“There must certainly be a discussion with Rome and the rest of the churches in the world … to clarify what are the decisions to make,” Parolin said.
Over the weekend, the influential and wealthy German church concluded its controversial “Synodal Path” reform process, a multi-year consultation launched in 2019 and aimed at giving lay people a stronger voice after the country’s devastating clerical sexual abuse crisis further emptied church pews.
The final meeting in the process brought together more than 200 representatives of Catholic life in Germany, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex blessings, but delayed the start date until March 2026.
While these blessings are already routinely given by many congregations and pastors in Germany, they are formally banned by the Catholic Church, a position the Vatican reiterated in in 2021 when its Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement against such blessings on grounds that God “cannot bless sin” and that it would be “illicit” for a priest to lend any legitimacy to same-sex unions.
Yet despite the Vatican’s position, 176 participants in Germany’s concluding Synodal Path meeting voted in favor of the blessings. Fourteen participants voted against them while 12 abstained, but the necessary two-thirds majority was still reached.
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