Bonn (KNA) “Love wins” – that is the name of the initiative in which Catholic chaplains in parishes across Germany plan to invite people to “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10. It was launched in Hamburg at the weekend. The campaign’s website said the aim was to celebrate “the diversity of people’s different life plans and love stories” and to ask for God’s blessing. Gay and lesbian couples are also invited, which is attracting public attention because the Vatican declared in mid-March that the Catholic Church had no authority to bless same-sex relationships as such unions did not correspond to the divine will. That statement has been widely criticized among church members in Germany. “I have blessed buildings and sugar beet harvesting machines,” said the Wuerzburg priest Burkhard Hose. “So why not also people who love each other?”