A church in Germany has held the first of several historic Masses across the country to bless homosexual couples in the coming week, in defiance of a Vatican decree clarifying that such blessings are banned in the Catholic Church. “The heavens were open,” Munich priest Wolfgang Rothe said, visibly moved after blessings before an altar decorated with a rainbow flag in the Catholic Church of St Benedict. The church in the southern German city is holding one of four planned blessing Masses in the majority-Catholic state of Bavaria. The other three are set to take place in the city of Wuerzburg. On Monday – a week before the International Day against Homophobia – church services all over Germany from Aachen to Zornheim, as well as in major cities like Frankfurt, Cologne and Berlin, are to stage blessings of same-sex couples under the motto #liebegewinnt (love wins).