Spain’s socialist government today approved a bill to legalise same-sex marriages, putting the predominantly Roman Catholic country on course to become only the third country to recognise gay marriages.

Months of planning, hundreds of guests and thousands of police in the streets will give way to a royal wedding redolent of the fairy tales written by Denmark’s Hans Christian Andersen.

A Roman Catholic priest led an open communion service at a packed Lutheran church in Berlin, defying a papal admonition against receiving communion in non-Catholic churches.