A not-so-good article at NCRegister.

The one extreme is pretending that you are just blessing persons, so that it would be irrelevant that you are blessing a same-sex couple. The other extreme is the false claim that sinful sexual acts are being blessed. The truth is in the middle, that the blessing is on the relationship of the two persons. And the problem is that this relationship, in many cases, includes grave unrepentant sin.

The recent blessings in Germany of “lovers”, in large part same-sex couples, should not be viewed as either extreme. It is not merely a blessing of human persons, to which there is no inherent obstacle, if a person is LGBT. It is also not a blessing of same-sex sexual acts, as some conservative media outlets are claiming. Even if a Catholic heterosexual married couple received a blessing, it is not a blessing of sexual acts.

Certainly, the faithful should always be obedient to the Pope and the Holy See. It was a schismatic act to proceed with the blessings, after the Holy See spoke against it.

However, the above article from NCR is wrong to portray these blessings of human persons and their relationships as “diabolical” and the like. The Church must always reach out to sinners, to persons with failings and see the face of Christ in them. A person is not his sinful acts.

On the other hand, God loves a repentant sinner. Persons who are unrepentant from objectively grave sin should not approach for blessings or Sacraments without repentance. And pastors should propose repentance and conversion, rather than blessing unrepentant persons who oppose Church teaching and discipline.

I do not think that the Church should generally bless unmarried couples, even if they are a man and woman believed to be chaste. The pastors giving the blessing do not know what their relationship is like. This practice could easily lead to the misapprehension that the Church approves of whatever is sinful in that relationship. And very many Catholic single persons are sexually active outside of marriage. So the “blessing of lovers” uses the cover of love as a virtue to implicitly approve of sex outside of a valid Catholic marriage. This set of blessings in Germany was a blessing given to couples with open disregard for whether or not they are habitually guilty of grave sin, and whether or not they are repentant. Worse still, some of the pastors giving the blessing seem to intend to oppose Church teaching on sexual relationships.

The Church cannot change Her teachings on ethics, sexual ethics, and same-sex sexual acts. These teachings are from Divine Revelation of the truth about human nature, God, and morality. This will be a conflict between the Church and society for a long time. But there is no solution to be found in acquiescing to the popular sins of secular society.

RLCJ