A German bishop issued a letter last Thursday in which he asked pastors in his diocese to bless same-sex couples.

Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann wrote to priests, deacons and lay pastoral workers saying that the blessings — which he also extended to remarried couples — could take place in churches in the Diocese of Speyer.

“The ceremony must differ from a church wedding ceremony in terms of words and signs and should explicitly reinforce the love, commitment, and mutual responsibility in the couple’s relationship as an act of blessing,” he wrote in the November 3 letter.