Cardinal Rainer Woelki, of Germany, Abstained from Voting at Synodal Path, and is "waiting for the opinion of the Holy See"

In a recent interview, Cardinal Rainer Woelki, head of the Archdiocese of Colongne, Germany, said that, he assumes that the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, will endeavor to clarify the issue in Rome and is "waiting for the opinion of the Holy See". 

"Cardinal Woelki knows about the deep desire of same-sex couples for a church blessing, which the archbishop can empathize with," the archdiocese explained to the "Kölnische Rundschau" on Tuesday.

 Woelki had abstained from voting
The plenary assembly of the Catholic reform project Synodal Path decided last week at its final session that there could be official Catholic blessing celebrations for same-sex couples and remarried divorced people in Germany in the future. Woelki had abstained from voting on this.

The pope's leading Vatican Cardinal, Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin said on Monday evening at a book launch in Rome that the question of blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples could not be answered by a local church alone. Rather, what is needed is a dialogue at the level of the world church.

As early as March 2021, the Vatican faith authority had announced in writing that the Catholic Church had no authority to bless marriages between persons of the same sex. It is not permissible to bless relationships or even stable partnerships that involve sexual practice outside of marriage. The votes of the synodal path at a glance

The fifth and final plenary session of the Synodal Path in Frankfurt (March 9-11) passed resolutions on reforms in the Catholic Church. In total, the 210 delegates discussed ten papers from Thursday to Saturday. Eight texts were adopted at second reading. One text was referred to the yet to be established Synodal Committee for further processing. A text passed the first reading and has therefore not yet been finally decided.

Source: Domradio.de