Breakaway church gives gay ex-monk what Vatican would deny him: a holy wedding

MUNICH, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Anselm Bilgri, a former monk and prior at one of Germany’s most famous monasteries, had to leave the Roman Catholic Church to wed his long-term male partner. Now he hopes their wedding within a breakaway church will normalise such unions.

Bilgri, 68, and his partner Markus Achter, 41, were wed in a Munich church on Saturday by a priest of the Old Catholic Church, which emerged in the Netherlands in the 19th century and lets priests marry and allows same-sex relationships.

“I immediately thought: now I have actually received all seven sacraments, from ordination to marriage,” said Bilgri, chuckling after the ceremony. “And I would like it to become normal.”

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Bilgri, who was ordained in 1980 by Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict, left the Roman Catholic Church in 2020 due to frustrations over its failure to modernise – the Vatican does not allow priests or same-sex couples to wed.

His was one of many departures from the Catholic Church in Germany amid anger over abuse scandals and a feeling among some that the institution is failing to keep up with the times.

That feeling intensified last year after the Vatican decided not to allow priests to bless same-sex unions. The ruling disappointed believers who had hoped Pope Francis would soften the hard line taken on the issue by John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI – and not just in Germany.

Flemish Roman Catholic bishops last month issued a document effectively allowing the blessing of same-sex unions in defiance of that ruling.

Bilgri ran the brewery at a Munich monastery before becoming prior, or deputy head, of the 900-year-old Andechs Abbey on Bavaria’s “Holy Mountain”, in 1999 co-authoring the book “Cooking and Healing with Beer”.

“Take this ring and wear it as a sign of love and faithfulness,” Bilgri said as he slid a gold ring onto the little finger of Achter’s right hand in a small church in Munich, both wearing matching black morning coats with white roses in their lapels.

The couple had already wed in a civil ceremony last year.

“I always think that if it becomes more and more self-evident, then at some point it will no longer be something special,” said Achter. “That’s the direction we want to go in, and maybe we have set a sign for that today.”

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Reporting by Louisa Off, Ayhan Uyanik and Sarah Marsh
Editing by Mark Potter

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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