About 100 Catholic churches across Germany joined in a nationwide event on May 10, offering church blessings to same-sex couples in direct defiance of the Vatican. At St. Benedict’s church in Munich, where about 30 gay and lesbian couples received blessings, Father Wolfgang Rothe said: “Heavens were open. All people were happy.” But the German initiative—coming as a challenge to the Vatican’s statement that Catholic churches cannot bless same-sex unions—escalated the threat of an open schism.