Never Trust The Liberal News Media

Panic gripped all corners of the Catholic Church the other day with a plethora of headlines from major international news outlets:

AP News: Pope approves blessings for same-sex couples
USA Today: Pope Francis approves blessings for same-sex couples
New York Times: After Pope Decision, a Same-Sex Couple Receives a Blessing in New York
Reuters: Vatican Approves Blessings for Same-Sex Couples in Landmark-Ruling

However, if you look at some of these URLs, they give away the original, less sensational titles the stories used to have. For example, the Reuters headline was originally "Vatican Approves Blessings for Same Sex Couples Under Certain Circumstances."

Certain circumstances, you say?

The document in question is Fiducia Supplicans; which is a declaration on the meaning and purpose of blessings. The document does affirm Church teaching on marriage as a union between one man and one woman and insists that the blessing cannot in any way be done in such a way that it would seem to negate that teaching. The homosexual partners cannot be dressed as though it were a wedding. The blessing cannot take place in the context of a civil union or celebration of a civil union. The blessing cannot condone sin. The blessing can not be in any way liturgical. In other words, there should be no mistaking that this blessing is not meant to be an appeasement of the sin of homosexuality or equate a disordered homosexual or heterosexual relationship in any way to the Sacrament of Matrimony or Marriage.

As John Bursch, Vice President of the Appellate Advocacy for Alliance Defending Freedom, points out correctly and plainly in the National Catholic Register: Pope Francis Did Not Just Authorize Priests to Bless Same-Sex Unions. Blessing a Same Sex Union is the same thing as blessing sin; which no priest or Bishop (even the Bishop of Rome) can do. Instead, what the document allows is the blessing of the people in the relationship. In fact, if we look at Father James Martin's blessing of the same sex couple in the New York Times article, we see this:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his countenance to you and give you joy and peace. And may almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen."

Nothing in Father Martin's blessing is blessing sin, likely because, as Catholic apologist Trent Horn points out below, Father Martin knows how to walk that line dangerously well:

Regardless of how Father James Martin walks the line, he followed the rules in his blessing and, aside from the fact that this was clearly staged with photographers and the New York Times, there was nothing wrong with the blessing itself. It wasn't part of a civil union ceremony, their sinful relationship wasn't blessed, their civil marriage was not blessed. It was merely a blessing of the two of them. There is nothing novel about that.

The teaching of the Catholic Church has not, and cannot, change because nobody, not even the Church, has the authority to change Scripture and the teachings of Christ.