Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limberg (the president of the bishops’ conference) and Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg have joined Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich in calling for a change in the Church’s discipline of clerical celibacy.

In addition, the vicars general of 11 German dioceses called for changes in the German bishops’ employment policies, so as to allow those in same-sex marriages, as well as those who have remarried outside the Church, to work for dioceses.