Faced with a German Church that may be, at this point, a schismatic ecclesial body, Pope Leo XIV made remarks on April 22nd that stirred controversy and debate.
On April 20th, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, implemented a document issued on April 4th, entitled “Blessing Gives Strength to Love,” instructing priests under his authority to bless “same-sex couples”, as well as couples that have remarried outside the Church. Furthermore, compromising the consciences of faithful priests, the document states that, “Priests who do not want to carry out such blessing celebrations for homosexual marriages or remarried divorced people must refer the couples to the dean or other staff.”
Undoubtedly, Marx was emboldened by Fiducia Supplicans, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s highly troubling and controversial December 2023 declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings. Fiducia states:
“Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex, the form of which should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage …”.
Of course, the troubling language is the actual use of the word “couples, indicating that couples who are themselves engaged in immoral sexual behavior may be blessed. To his credit, Pope Francis tried to scale back the damage. In his December 29, 2024, interview on 60 Minutes, Francis provided this clarification regarding Fiducia Supplicans:
What I allowed was not to bless the union. That cannot be done because that is not a sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the law; the natural law, the law of the Church. But to bless each person, why not?
Needless to say, Cardinal Marx is in defiance of Francis’ clarification and in defiance of the Holy See’s own stated disapproval given two years ago of the German Church’s formal blessing of those in “irregular unions.”
On the Holy Father’s plane trip from Africa back to Rome, several journalists were on hand, and one of them put to him the following question:
I would like to know how you assess the decision of Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, that he gave permission to the blessing of same-sex couples in his diocese, and in light of different cultural and theological perspectives, especially in Africa, how do you intend to preserve the unity of the global Church on that particular matter?
It is interesting that the reporter did not ask Leo what he thought of Marx’s decision, but zoomed in on how the German cardinal’s “pastoral practice” would affect the unity of the Church. Here is Leo’s answer:
First of all, I think it’s very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion,that would all take priority before that particular issue. The Holy See has already spoken to the German bishops.
The Holy See has made it clear 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 in saying all people receive blessings.
When a priest gives a blessing at the end of Mass, when the Pope gives a blessing at the end of a large celebration like the one we had today, they are blessings for all people. Francis’ well-known expression ‘Tutti, tutti, tutti’ is an expression of the Church’s belief that all are welcome; all are invited; all are invited to follow Jesus, and all are invited to look for conversion in their lives.
To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity, and that we should look for ways to build our unity upon Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ teaches. So that’s how I would respond to that question.
The Pope should be lauded for qualifying Francis’ “Tutti, tutti, tutti” when he says it means “all are welcome…to follow Jesus, and all are invited to look for conversion in their lives.” Thus. Leo taught that “Tutti, tutti, tutti” doesn’t mean that “all are welcome” within the Body of Christ, irrespective of what a person believes. He emphasized what a person does and his attitude towards Christ and the Church. Leo, then, gave a refreshing clarification on what it means for the Church to hold the door open for all.
Also, Leo explained that blessings are often given in “large celebrations” and thus “they are blessings for all people”—meaning even people who are committing sexual sins. The blessing would also fall on them. Whether they are spiritually disposed to receive its benefits is perhaps another matter. And the pontiff added: “To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity.” It is possible that Leo was referring to the Church in Germany—that, in fact, its “formal” blessings of those in irregular unions is a cause of disunity.
However, Leo’s first comment can be misunderstood or misrepresented as meaning that sexual morality is not important or even essential. And some have certainly interpreted it that way. In doing so, they join ranks with many German bishops and others who embrace the “Synodaler Weg”, which publicly proclaims teachings absolutely contrary to the Faith of the Church regarding sexual morality, not to mention the ordination of women to the priesthood.
But assent to Catholic sexual ethics is essential to the unity of what it means for the Church to be Catholic. Sexual ethics has to do with protecting the institution of marriage—the primary unit of society—as it is marriage—between one man and one woman, open to the good of children, and the founding of the family—that provides the God-given foundation and order of the world.
Furthermore, marriage constitutes the very order of the covenant of redemption in which marriages in the Church sacramentally participate. Sex is not simply a matter of morality. Ultimately, what men and women do with their bodies is first connected to the sacramental meaning of the body. The meaning of human sexuality is essential to the covenant. Human sexuality is not “simply” a matter of ethics, as human sexuality is connected to ecclesiology—the nature of the Church in union with Christ.
This is explicitly taught in St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians:
Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her to make her holy, purifying her in the bath of water by the power of the word to present to himself a glorious church, holy and immaculate, without stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort. Husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Observe that no one ever hates his own flesh; no, he nourishes it and takes care of it as Christ cares for the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall be made into one.” This is a great foreshadowing; I mean that it refers to Christ and the Church (Eph. 5: 22-32).
The Pauline passage clearly teaches that the covenant of redemption exists as a marriage between Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church. Furthermore, Paul goes all the way back to Gen. 2:24 and pronounces the ultimate exegesis that the one-flesh unity of the first couple is designed by God to be from the beginning a transcendent-sacramental sign that speaks and makes present the nuptial unity of Christ and the Church, as the “one flesh” is the great “foreshadowing” of this reality.
This is why, if a particular local Church departs from Catholic teaching on sexual morality, unity with the Church is broken.
St. Augustine poignantly articulated the marital relation between Christ and his Church. The fifth-century Church doctor’s exegesis on Psalm 127 states that salvation is centered on a pair: Christ and His Church. This is a nuptial pair as Christ and His Church are prefigured in the first couple.
Consider this very beautiful quotation:
But where did he sleep? On the Cross. When He slept on the Cross, He bore a sign … He fulfilled what had been signified in Adam: For when Adam was asleep, a rib was drawn from him, and Eve was created; so also while the Lord slept on the Cross, His side was transfixed with a spear, and the sacraments flowed forth, whence the Church was born. For the Church, the Lord’s bride was created from His side, as Eve was created from the side of Adam. But as she was made from His side no otherwise than while sleeping, so the Church was created from His side no otherwise while dying.
Not only do Catholic sexual ethics have an ecclesial dimension, but Catholic sexual morality also has an Eucharistic dimension.
The nuptial covenant between Christ and his Church is made present in the sacrifice of the Mass as the male priest standing in persona Christi and the feminine Church, signed by every baptized woman, speak and make historically present the marital meaning of the Covenant of Redemption. Here, masculinity and femininity-human sexuality realizes its beauty, its value, and its truth because it knows its differentiated responsibility in effecting the New Covenant. The society of the Christus totus is a “one flesh” union, and the Eucharistic sacrifice is its expression.
This nuptial union will be ultimately fulfilled in the end times, as the Book of Revelation teaches. The covenantal love between Christ and his people, present sacramentally, will be eschatologically made real in Christ’s second coming, as poetically expressed in Scripture’s last book:
Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb[a] has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure. (Rev. 19:6-8)
Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away ….I saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. (Rev. 21:2)
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” (Rev. 22:17)
Rather ironically, the German Handbook on blessings for those in “irregular unions, issued April 23, 2025, refers to the Church with feminine pronouns. For example:
The Church wishes to proclaim the God-given dignity of every person in word and deed … She therefore recognizes and offers support to couples united in love, who treat each other with full respect and dignity, and are willing to live out their sexuality in care for themselves and each other with long-term social responsibility.
Unfortunately, that part of the Church in Germany advocating blessings for those who are not living according to Catholic sexual moral teachings fails to see the connection between those moral teachings and the sacramental meaning of the body that signs the Church as “she.”
If sexual ethics are inherently connected to the Church and the Eucharist through the God-given sacramental nature of the body, then might it not actually be the case that no other moral teachings of the Church, however essential to living the life of Christ, have priority? The point is that, according to natural law, Catholic morality, and the revealed law of God, the Church achieves her unity through the way her members uphold and put into practice Catholic sexual morality.
And, yes, it may certainly be said that all the other moral teachings of the Church also have an ecclesial dimension, as putting those teachings into practice makes the Faith real in the public square, as believers bring Christ to the world. Yet, the marital order of the Covenant depends on the sacramental sexual integrity of the Body in a way that other lived Catholic morality does not.
So, let us celebrate Christ and the Church’s nuptial covenant of love—and ask God for the graces to live it.
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Another very beautiful and deeply profound reflection from Miss Miller. She is always so insightful.
Would that the college of cardinals could find a papal candidate as astute as this part-time Professor of Theology.
Wow, this is another prime example of popesplaining by americans under Leo, perhaps bordering on dishonesty. It even gives Francis a pass, claiming that he tried to scale back the damage by dishonestly saying the document only allows for blessing individuals; even Leo disowns this, saying so in his words quoted here, and on a prior occasion, and before he was pope, at which time he said it should be up to each bishop to apply it according to their cultural context! Cardinal Fernandez has also affirmed it applies to couples, including after Leo was elected, e.g. in july, 2025. This piece thus tries to claim that the germans are the ones “advocating blessings for those who are not living according to Catholic sexual moral teachings!” NOOO! It’s F. Supplicans and Leo that allows for that; but say that it is informal blessings only. For someone to deny that and to still claim that it only pertains to individuals is stupifying. No mention or fuss is thus made about the real scandal- that Leo affirmed F. Supplicans and same-sex blessings. Or perhaps it is precisely an attempt to exculpate his doing so by trying to whitewash the document. Otherwise, people have fallen right into the trap- framing it about the germans going too far and Leo “rebuking” that; leading to a growing acceptance of the “lesser evil” of F. Supplicans and its problematic contents; it’s now a matter of going too far with “formal” blessings. Marx’s actions are only possible because of F. Supplicans, and when that is affirmed, it matters little whether it’s a formal or informal blessing.
Let’s also stop pretending that germany is striking out on it’s own against Rome’s wishes. Rome is at least tolerating what is happening there- aside from lip service, nothing of any sort is ever done to stop it. To the contrary, those bishops for it are praised and promoted while the only discipline has been against those opposed to the craziness in germany. (And remember that Marx was one of Francis’ right hand men.) So, whether it’s two years ago, or nine months ago, when the german bishop’s conference issued guidelines for this, nothing happens. Nine months ago Leo gave the same reply he did this time; but here we are 9 months later and the germans did what they told everyone they were going to do, and nothing happened in the mean time. There’s also the fact that nothing will be done this time, which means the pooh-poohing from Leo and Rome is only token. It reminds one of the time that the CDF/DDF “rebuked” the germans over allowing protestants to recieve communion; then Marx had a meeting with Francis and came away with his approval. Americans need to avoid the the temptation to look the other way with Leo.
I agree with John, and with Anna’s comment also.
I generally like Monica Miller’s writing, but there is an awful lot of “popesplaining” in this article.
I will address only one thing. The pope says there is too much emphasis on sexual morality when we should concentrate on, “justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion.” While people may disagree with how to address those issues they do not believe they should not be addressed. But on sexual sins there is a lot of disagreement among Catholics, and even bishops (see those bishops and cardinals who believe that the Catechism teaching on homosexuality should be changed). I think there is a tendency there to want to pick the low hanging fruit rather than the more difficult higher fruit.
What we are witnessing in the Catholic Church is the classic battle of Good v Evil.
In fact, it has occurred to me that every passage in Scripture can and should be read as saying something about this battle of Good v Evil.
I would add to what I’ve written about all matters being reduced by discerning what is Good v what is Evil.
In the case of human sexuality what is truly unitive, what has the potential to be fecund and what mirrors Christ’s relationship with His Church is the union of male and female in marriage for the good of the couple and for the procreation of children. That is what is Good. All else is Evil.
We must never allow ourselves to be confused thinking that Evil can ever inhere in any manner, shape or form with the Good. Nothing that is Good can ever, at the same time be Evil. All Church teaching must explicate exactly what is Good and what is Evil.
Furthermore, let’s be clear. Human persons who do Evil, are Evil. They are not Good. Evil persons can be Good if they recognize the Evil they are doing, express sincere contrition and strive to do what is Good. The Evil one wants us confused about any distinction between Good v Evil.
“What I allowed was not to bless the union. That cannot be done because that is not a sacrament. I cannot. The Lord made it that way. But to bless each person, yes. The blessing is for everyone. For everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the law; the natural law, the law of the Church. But to bless each person, why not?”
Well, if ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ is not about blessing the homosexual unions = couples but about “blessing individual persons” then there is no need in ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ because the Church has been blessing persons (including homosexual) and whole congregations for all its history.
Therefore, there was a “need” of some sort to produce FS. And what pray tell might that be?! (Perhaps to “develop” doctrine at the next sinodality meeting.)
“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“
Matthew 5:48
“It makes no difference whether a bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope; for, though it be slender, the bird will be held as fast as if it were a rope, until it breaks it and flies away.”
St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel (Book I, Chapter 11)
From the St. Augustine quote (above), we read: “He fulfilled what had been signified in Adam: For when Adam was asleep, a rib was drawn from him, and Eve was created…”
St. John Paul II unpacks this further:
“Perhaps, therefore, the analogy of sleep indicates here not so much a passing from consciousness to subconsciousness, as a specific return to non-being (sleep contains an element of annihilation of man’s conscious existence), that is, to the moment preceding the creation, in order that, through God’s creative initiative, solitary ‘man’ may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female” (The Original Unity of Man and Woman, audience of Nov. 7, 1979, in “The Theology of the Body”).
By THIS deeper understanding (“double unity”), sexual differentiation of “man” as male and female together, enables personal orientation toward the “other” as constitutive of personhood. In what sense, then, is the sameness [!] of homosexual “couples” in any way even related to “sexual ethics”? Sodomy by any other name is still sodomy.
When asked what he would do to save his realm, the Chinese emperor replied, “I would restore the meaning of words.”
“However, Leo’s first comment can be misunderstood or misrepresented as meaning that sexual morality is not important or even essential.”
.
Can be misunderstood? That’s the only way what he said can be understood: sexual morality is not that important.
Ms. Miller makes strong case for the nuptial relationship of Jesus and His Church and its importance. She loses the plot towards the end by forcing the analogy to carry too much weight and serve her conclusion that human sexuality is the most important ethical consideration. Jesus Himself seemed to present many other considerations before and more frequently than human sexuality through out the Gospels. Our society is very sex obsessed and Christians should be salt and light in putting first things first.
Sex has to do with creating new human beings. I am not sure how that isn’t a “first” thing.
“Our society is very sex obsessed”
Really? For the vast majority of human existence, the conditions in which people lived were horrible, poorly understood, crude and subject to disease, famine, pestilence, immobility, unpredictable conditions and natural disasters where rescue or relief were impossible. To engage in sex meant committing yourself to another person and the children that might arise from that relationship. No rational person would engage in sex. Only the people that ignored their privations did so. It is a powerful force that allows a single person to wield enormous power. It binds man and woman, parents and children, the oldest and youngest generation. When used indiscriminately, it causes confusion, heartache, grief, deception and betrayal, poverty, disease-even murder and war.
Your offer repetitive obsessive harangues about obsessing about sex, but they only betray an implicit desire for disinterest and indifference-no doubt in service to furthering the cause of a Sans souci libertinism-only demonstrates that you are just another hairless biped obsessed with sex. Your efforts in this regard will be as productive as a woodpecker in a petrified forest.
Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, quite a few gay men were ordained. This resulted in a “Lavender Mafia” within the Priesthood, and many of those gay Priests became Bishops.
Today, the German Church is the result of this phenomena.
Perhaps Pope Leo is playing the long game? Wait for the current generation of Bishops to retire and die off, and replace them with younger more orthodox Priests. Leo should be Pope for many years. He has his work cut out for him.
Unity within the Church must be understood to revolve around sexual matters since the transmission of human life is the apex where justice is initiated for the human person made in God’s image.
If we compare the perception of Pope Leo’s comment that sexual matters are secondary to other more vital concerns as morally associated with the heresy of the Synodaler Weg – we are indebted to acknowledge the opposite. That it is also an acknowledgement that such a secondary positioning is misplaced.
Monica Migliorino-Miller makes a charitable, well intentioned assessment of Pope Leo’s controversial comments on sexuality the omission of its reference to marriage.
As well intended as her commentary is, there are some of us who have to answer to parishioners. And our response must make clear what the Church teaches, and the reasoned measure of moral priorities such as the marital conjugal act, its beauty and purpose as having priority over other important matters such as poverty, and climate control.
God is our Creator, Who made the human race in His Own image and likeness. God shares with us His image and likeness as Creator by means of human procreation. Christ was very clear in Mathew 19 about marriage and human sexuality. He also blessed the little children saying “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” St. Paul was very clear about marriage and human sexuality. The alphabet sexuality groups have a strong tilt towards sterile non-lifegiving sexualities. Many countries are below replacement birth rates, in demographic winter.
Nine circles of hell, graded in terms of severity depending on the nature of the offence against God, according to Dante.
Best advice to us sinners comes from the Psalms.
‘No evil one shall dwell with Thee, nor shall the godless abide in thy presence. Thou hatest all that do evil’.
Best advice from any bishop or priest should be ‘do no evil and repent always’