MUNICH. – 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 normalize 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.”
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 modernize — 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.
