are not widespread and because civil unions do not require religious officiation, documentation of the incidence of church blessing of same-sex couples is difficult. Roman Catholic Church During the 1990s, a discussion began in the Roman Catholic Church about blessings for same-sex unions. Central teaching remains clear that such unions can in no ways be sanctioned by the Catholic Church. However, there are instances when individual priests carry out informal blessings. They risk being disciplined if the blessing is discovered. Notable numbers of clerics have openly disobeyed this teaching: In the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aachen in Germany, five same-sex unions received a blessing in German town of Mönchengladbach. In 2007, one same-sex union received a blessing in German town of Wetzlar in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Limburg. In October 2014 a blessing of a same-sex union took place in Bürglen, Uri, Switzerland. The priest subsequently made a public apology. A blessing of a same-sex union took place by a Catholic Dominican priest in Malta in 2015. In May 2015 the Central Committee of German Catholics voted in favour of blessing of same-sex unions. In 2015, Belgian bishop Johan Bonny from Roman Catholic Diocese of Antwerp in Antwerpen supported blessing of same-sex marriages. In 2017, the association We are Church supported blessing of same-sex marriages. In January 2018 German bishop Franz-Josef Bode of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Osnabrück said in an interview with German journalists, that the blessing of same-sex unions is possible in German Roman Catholic churches. In February 2018, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising and chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, said in an interview with German journalists that the blessing of same-sex unions is possible in German Roman Catholic churches. In Austria blessing of same-sex unions are allowed in Roman Catholic Diocese of Linz. In Austria the Parish Priests Initiative led by Father Helmut Schueller is blessing same-sex unions in defiance of the pope. The group gave a statement which included, "We members of the Parish Priests Initiative are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that seeks to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples. This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to have overcome with Pope Francis." In the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aachen over fifty blessings of same-sex unions have been held in recent years. In the German Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paderborn blessings of same-sex