How the Call to Promote Blessings for Homosexual Partnerships First Gained Support

To understand better the action of the homosexual movement inside the Church, we are publishing excerpts from the recently published book, The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement. Authors José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo discuss the terrible process leading up to the release of the Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans, which allows priestly blessings to those in irregular or homosexual relationships. The following text describes the four arguments used to justify blessings for homosexual partnerships.

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One of the first concessional gestures the homosexual movement had to secure from the Catholic Church was to have priests—her representatives—bless homosexual pairs who came before them. For example, since its founding in 1991, the Christian Association of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals, and Bisexuals of Catalonia (A.C.G.I.L.) has put several homosexual pairs a year in contact with “5 or 6 priests of trust” who are willing to bless their union, in a ceremony that is always done “with the utmost discretion,” “without photos or any kind of public,” either in the partners’ home or in the priest’s own church.¹

Mockery Masquerading as a Sacrament

In Germany, the spokesman for the Community of Homosexuals and the Church told Der Spiegel magazine there are ceremonies where homosexual pairs come secretly, only with friends, siblings, or parents, to receive a blessing and occasionally exchange rings in the traditional way. Describing one such ceremony that took place in Cologne, he said, “It was like a bridal mass with about thirty people, a ring blessing, and classic wedding rituals” while the organ played “Great God, we praise you.”²

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The same thing has happened for decades in practically every country having associations of homosexuals who declare themselves Catholic and priests who act as chaplains for them. Sometimes, they did not hold a formal ceremony, even if private, but an informal blessing of the pair during a home visit, as Gery Kezler, the organizer of Vienna’s Life Ball, Europe’s largest AIDS fundraising event, revealed in an interview with Austrian television. On August 15, the feast of the Assumption, in 2018, he invited a group of friends to lunch at his country home, and on this occasion, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, blessed him and his partner after the meal. Then they opened a bottle of champagne, and the cork ended up breaking a valuable Meissen porcelain plate.³ Cardinal Schönborn’s complicity with the homosexual pair had begun nine months earlier when they jointly organized a performance by the Drag Queen Thomas Neuwirth (stage name, Conchita Wurst) in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, an event in memory of AIDS victims.⁴

Going Public

However, the homosexual movement was not satisfied with private ceremonies. It had to start organizing public blessing rituals. The best opportunity for that was Saint Valentine’s feast day, as many parishes organized Masses followed by the blessing of engaged and married couples. Homosexual pairs could easily present themselves at Mass and line up with others to receive the blessing. In addition, the Vienna Cathedral served as an incentive since an Austrian public television program filmed one of these events, and the cathedral rector earned public thanks from a homosexual pair.⁵

Get the book now! The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement is now available for $10.95.
Click here to get your copy now.

Gradually, the priests promoting such blessing ceremonies gave them more publicity, especially in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. One of the most scandalous cases was that of Fr. Christoph Simonsen. In 2003, he organized five blessing ceremonies for homosexual pairs before three hundred attendees at his Maria Hilf (Mary Help of Christians) church in Mönchengladbach, diocese of Aachen, during a Liturgy of the Word with prayers and biblical readings during which the homosexual pair sat in the front row. Explaining his activities to the diocesan presbyteral council, Father Simonson said that “strengthening established same-sex partnerships” had a “liberating power.”⁶

Implied Permission for Illicit Acts

Priests who openly violated canonical provisions and the rules established in documents of the Holy See were rarely punished. The most eloquent case was that of Maltese Dominican Fr. Mark Montebello, who, in 2015, blessed rings during a private engagement ceremony for two known homosexuals. A photo of the episode was posted to Facebook, prompting a report in Malta’s leading newspaper and a great deal of controversy. Immediately, however, a Facebook group was formed in support of the priest. The archbishop, Most Rev. Charles Scicluna, and the superior of the Dominican friars on the island summoned the offender to a meeting, after which he received no sanction. In a statement, the archdiocese affirmed:

“During the cordial meeting, the archbishop encouraged Fr. Mark to continue his outreach to gay people and requested that he continue to follow Church practice and discipline in his ministry, especially in the celebration of sacred rites and Church rituals.

“Fr. Mark thanked the archbishop and the vicar general for their support and agreed that in his pastoral ministry to gay people, he would continue to follow Church practices and discipline.”⁷

German and Austrian Bishops Take the Lead

This impunity encouraged the progressive sector in the Church to defend the need for official acceptance of these blessing ceremonies and the preparation of a specific ritual for homosexual unions. This pressure was particularly intense in Austria and Germany.

In 2015, during the Synod on the Family, the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) proposed “a further development of liturgical forms, in particular blessings of same-sex partnerships, new partnerships of the divorced, and for important decisions in family life.”⁸ Several German bishops later reiterated this proposal. In January 2018, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of the Diocese of Osnabrück said in an interview with German journalists that blessing same-sex unions was possible in German Catholic churches.⁹ The following month, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, then-president of the German Bishops’ Conference, hinted in an interview that such blessings were possible.¹⁰

Get the book now! The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement is now available for $10.95.
Click here to get your copy now.

The following year, the prestigious Herder publishing house released the book Mit Dem Segen Der Kirche?: Gleichgeschlechtliche Partnerschaft Im Fokus Der Pastoral (“With the Church’s Blessing? Same-Sex Unions in the Focus of Pastoral Care”) under the direction of Stephan Loos, Michael Reitemeyer, and Georg Trettin. It had a foreword by Bishop Dr. Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück and Archbishop Dr. Stefan Hesse of Hamburg. It also included an anthology of lectures given at a symposium of the Academy of the Diocese of Osnabrück on the possibility of blessing ceremonies for homosexual unions. According to Loos, options within canon law already exist: “Under certain conditions, a local bishop may issue norms for the liturgy, which may also include blessings.”¹¹

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