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

Former Benedictine monk Father Anselm Bilgri and his husband Markus pose for the media following their ecclesiastical same-gender marriage at Saint Willibrord church in Munich, Germany, October 8, 2022. REUTERS/Yannick Thedens

MUNICH (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.