Cardinal Victor Fernández, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), told Vatican News this week that the letter he sent in 2024 rejecting the German bishops’ draft vademecum, or handbook, proposing formal blessings of same-sex couples also applies to the text of the German bishops’ current vademecum. He emphasized the current handbook does not have DDF approval.
“What was said in that letter also applies to the text of the current Vademecum, which does not have the approval of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” Cardinal Fernández told Vatican News.
The representatives of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZcK) definitively approved the current vademecum, titled “Blessing Strengthens Love,” in April 2025.
Cardinal Fernández told Vatican News that the 2024 letter was “the one and only final response” to both the proposed vademecum and the text the conference had approved in April 2025. The letter, which was initially sent privately to Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, was made public this week upon the agreement of Pope Leo XIV.
Zeale News previously reported that Cardinal Fernández’s letter addressed several statements in the proposed vademecum that he said conflicted with the contents of the DDF-issued declaration Fiducia supplicans. He raised concern that the proposed vademecum suggested a pre-set form of blessings for same-sex couples, which contradicts the instruction of Fiducia supplicans prohibiting liturgical rites or forms of blessings that could cause confusion.
The letter was made public on the DDF’s website weeks after German Cardinal Reinhard Marx shared his decision to bring in guidelines of formal blessing for same-sex couples and divorced and remarried persons in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
The Vatican News report also spotlights that despite the cardinal’s explanation of his concerns with the proposed vademecum, the copy approved in April 2025 was not adequately changed.
“Indeed, although the final text [of the vademecum] differs from the original draft, it does not actually incorporate what was written in the 2024 letter,” Vatican News reported, “because, although it speaks of spontaneity and freedom regarding blessings for extramarital couples, it proposes a kind of liturgy or para-liturgical ritual that is not permitted by the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans which was issued in December 2023.”
“That Declaration states that with regard to blessings that ‘the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion’ regarding marriage,” the outlet added.
The German Vatican News X account reiterated this news in a May 6 X post.
Das vatikanische Glaubensdikasterium hat gegenüber Vatican News klargestellt: Das deutsche Segnungs-Vademecum für homosexuelle Paare und andere Paare in irregulären Beziehungen hat nicht die Zustimmung des Dikasteriums.⬇️
— Vatican News (@vaticannews_de) May 6, 2026
The automatic English translation of the post states, “The Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has clarified to Vatican News: The German blessing guide for homosexual couples and other couples in irregular relationships does not have the Dicastery's approval.”