{"id":10747,"date":"2026-05-06T13:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/10747\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:40:07","slug":"ddf-responds-to-vademecum-on-blessings-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/10747\/","title":{"rendered":"DDF responds to vademecum on blessings in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal V\u00edctor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez, explains that the November 2024 letter also applies to the text of the current vademecum, which does not have the Dicastery\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n<p>Vatican News<\/p>\n<p>The letter from Cardinal V\u00edctor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez, dated 18 November 2024, concerning the draft vademecum of the German Bishops on blessings for extramarital unions, is a valid response also to the text entitled \u201cBlessing Strengthens Love,\u201d which was\u00a0definitively approved by the representatives of the German Bishops\u2019 Conference (DBK) and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) in April 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made this clear to Bishop Stephan Ackermann, Bishop of Trier and President of the Liturgical Commission of the German Bishops\u2019 Conference, during the last meeting held in the Vatican with the German Bishops on 12 November 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The Cardinal clarified that the 2024 letter, published recently on the Dicastery\u2019s website with the agreement of Pope Leo, was \u201cthe one and only final response\u201d, including to the text definitively approved in April 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was said in that letter,\u201d the Cardinal Prefect told Vatican News, \u201calso applies to the text of the current Vademecum, which does not have the approval of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, although the final text differs from the original draft, it does not actually incorporate what was written in the 2024 letter because, although it speaks of spontaneity and freedom regarding blessings for extramarital couples, it proposes a kind of liturgy or para-liturgical ritual that is not permitted by the Declaration <a href=\"https:\/\/press.vatican.va\/content\/salastampa\/it\/bollettino\/pubblico\/2023\/12\/18\/0901\/01963.html#en\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fiducia Supplicans<\/a>\u00a0which was issued in December 2023. That Declaration states that with regard to blessings that &#8220;the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion&#8221; regarding marriage.<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/content\/leo-xiv\/it\/speeches\/2026\/april\/documents\/20260423-guinea-volo-ritorno.html\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the return flight from Equatorial Guinea on 23 April<\/a>, responding to a question about the proposal to formalize blessings for homosexual couples in Germany, Pope Leo said that &#8220;The Holy See has already spoken to the German bishops.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Holy See has made it clear&#8221;, the Pope said, &#8220;that we do not agree with the formalized blessing of couples, in this case, homosexual couples, as you asked, or couples in irregular situations, beyond what was specifically, if you will, allowed for by Pope Francis.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal V\u00edctor Manuel Fern\u00e1ndez, explains that the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9707,9708,6621,5,9706],"class_list":{"0":"post-10747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-blessing","9":"tag-dicastery","10":"tag-fiducia-supplicans","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-homosexuality"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}