Meanwhile, Stephen P. White, CEO of The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America, told CNA – English-language news agency EWTN News— that the statement finally recognizes that “God cannot bless sin; but he can and often does bless sinners, especially when they ask him for the grace to grow in holiness.”
White added that “the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith repeatedly warned of the need to avoid scandal and confusion,” but that “any hope of avoiding such confusion and scandal appears to have evaporated almost instantly following the publication of the decree.”
“This was entirely foreseeable: from the hugely misleading press coverage, to the triumphalism of those who seek to discard the Church’s teaching on sex and marriage, to the insistence of certain sectors of the Church that they are now free to do precisely what the decree prohibits,” White observed.
In recent years, some priests in Germany and Belgium have challenged the Vatican’s previous ban on blessing same-sex couples. However, many of these blessings appear to still violate the new Vatican guidelines.