German Church leaders have largely welcomed the Vatican directive as an affirmation of the controversial path they’ve already taken to offer formalized blessings of same-sex couples and changes to the Church’s teaching on sexuality — even though Fiducia Supplicans claims to prohibit those possibilities.
For instance, Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, an important figure in the German Bishops’ Conference, said on Jan. 17 that his diocese would offer “blessing celebrations” to same-sex and divorced and remarried couples who request them.
And on Dec. 20, Birgit Mock, vice president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, said that the Catholic Church in Germany would proceed with plans to draft and disperse a formalized text of blessings, a resolution that had been approved in March 2023 by the controversial German Synodal Way.
Meanwhile, in Belgium, the website of the Catholic Church in the Flemish-speaking part of the country published a Dec. 20 editorial describing Fiducia Supplicans as a “landslide” and a “huge step toward the recognition of faithful and lasting homosexual relationships.” The Flemish-speaking bishops had already published a text for same-sex blessings in September 2022.
The bishops of the Netherlands have clearly received Fiducia Supplicans differently than their neighbors to the east and south but see their response as part of their commitment to providing pastoral accompaniment “for persons living in a homosexual relationship and for divorced persons remarried.”
“The Dutch bishops do not wish to deny anyone the support and strength of God,” they said in their statement.
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