Fr Mark Montebello to face Archbishop after blessing gay couple's engagement

The Archbishop has requested a meeting with Dominican friar Fr Mark Montebello after he blessed an engagement of a gay couple.

Photos of Fr Montebello blessing the rings during the engagement ceremony were uploaded on Facebook and carried by the Malta Independent. According to the Curia’s online portal Newsbook.com.mt, Archbishop Charles Scicluna has now requested a meeting with Fr Mark and the Provincial of the Dominican Order, Fr Frans Micallef.

Fr Mantebello publicly supported the civil unions legislation, arguing that it was the state’s duty to protect gay couples in the same way it protected heterosexual couples.

Last year, Mgr Scicluna - then Auxiliary Bishop - said that any Catholic MPs who planned on voting for the civil unions bill would be committing a “grave moral act” by doing so.

In an apparent reconciliatory move, Mgr Scicluna later attended an event for IDAHOT (International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia) organised by Drachma LGBTI, a Catholic LGBT group.

In 2013, Pope Francis told reporters "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" and has dined with gay and transsexual inmates in visits to prisons.

Recently though, the Pope spoke in opposition to gay marriage, and has declared that though homosexual orientation is not sinful, homosexual acts are.

In Belgium, a Bishop was quoted as having called for ecclesiastical recognition of gay relationships.

The official teaching that the Catholic church can recognize only male-female committed relationships has to change, Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp said.

“There should be recognition of a diversity of forms,” he said. “We have to look inside the church for a formal recognition of the kind of interpersonal relationship that is also present in many gay couples. Just as there are a variety of legal frameworks for partners in civil society, one must arrive at a diversity of forms in the church. … The intrinsic values are more important to me than the institutional question. The Christian ethic is based on lasting relationships where exclusivity, loyalty, and care are central to each other.”

The Bishop, the National Catholic Reporter reported, also made headlines in September when he issued a letter to the Vatican in preparation for the Synod on the family in October.

At that time, Bonny stressed that the church urgently needs to connect with contemporary society, showing more respect for homosexuality, divorced people and modern kinds of relationships.