The blessing of a gay couple. Photo: Daily Compass On June 11, 2022, for the first time in Italy, a same-sex couple received a church blessing for “marriage” in the church of San Lorenzo in Budrio, reports the Italian Catholic news site, Daily Compass. Pietro Moretti and Giacomo Spagnoli registered their marriage in the municipality of Budrio. Then, with numerous relatives and friends, they arrived at the church of San Lorenzo for a solemn mass. In order to circumvent the Roman Catholic church’s prohibition against same-sex marriages, the priests invented a special “mass of thanksgiving” in order to tie the...