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The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on May 4 published a 2024 letter criticizing a German bishops’ conference proposal for a ritual of blessing for couples in irregular unions, saying it contradicts Fiducia supplicans.
The move follows the approval by several German bishops of rituals and manuals for blessings of couples in irregular unions — developments criticized by Pope Leo XIV during an in-flight press conference returning from his April trip to Africa.
The dicastery released the letter, signed by its prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, and dated Oct. 24, 2024, addressed to Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier. The letter addressed a handbook sent to Rome as part of the manual “Blessings for couples who love one another,” which was slated for a vote by the German bishops’ conference later that year.
The letter quotes paragraph 11 of Fiducia supplicans, which says that “the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an
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