Critics Say Synod Report Undermines Church Teaching, Misrepresents Courage| National Catholic Register
A study group’s final report from the 2024 Synod on Synodality released Tuesday has been roundly criticized for attempting to change the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and for misrepresenting an apostolate, in good standing with the Church, that ministers to same-sex-attracted faithful.
The final report of Study Group 9 — entitled “Theological Criteria and Synod Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues” — contains various topics that Pope Francis wished to set aside from the 2023-2024 Synod on Synodality assemblies because he said there was not enough time to study the topics before the 2024 assembly.
Among the topics, which included ecumenism and the role of bishops, were Study Group 9’s “controversial” doctrinal, pastoral and ethical issues, including those surrounding same-sex relations. The report explains that the word “controversial” was replaced in the report with “emerging issues” in the final report in order to “experience an authentic ‘paradigm shift.’” The report maintains that a “paradigm shift” was a process initiated by the Second Vatican Council to challenge models of ecclesial life prevalent over the past centuries.
Setting the stage for what Catholic LGBTQ-rights activists have described as a “surprisingly progressive” view of same-sex relations, the report goes on to say that “pastorality” is its interpretative horizon. It underscores a concept of “relational conversion” that “demands learning through experience,” and offers guidelines for pastoral discernment on two specific emerging issues: the experience of homosexual Catholics and the commitment to active non-violence.
The report speaks of “discernment through conversation in the Spirit” having three “modes” which it defines as “listening to ourselves,” “paying attention to reality,” and “summoning various forms of expertise.”
The authors of the report included Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima, Peru, known for some theologically heterodox positions, including on homosexuality; Archbishop Filippo Iannone, the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops; Italian moral theologian Father Maurizio Chiodi, who has argued that contraception can be morally permissible for married couples in some circumstances based on Amoris Laetitia, and that homosexual relationships “under certain conditions” could be “the most fruitful way” for those with same-sex attractions to enjoy good relations; and Jesuit Father Carlo Casalone, a moral theologian who in 2022 was criticized for urging support for assisted suicide as a tactic to prevent the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in Italy.
The report then moves on to reporting on testimonies that form part of the overall Study Group 9 submission, from two Catholic men who are monogamously “married” to other men. With the inclusion of these testimonies, the report says the aim was to demonstrate how local Churches can practice synodal discernment through identifying the developmental stages within these stories, and to ask guiding questions. The goal, they said, is to initiate processes rather than provide universal solutions, respecting that local Churches themselves will adapt and implement this approach within their own contexts.
Two Testimonies
The author of the first testimony, a man from Portugal, contended that the Lord gave him all that was needed to build a “life of shared faith and service with my husband.” He recalled how the family of his “husband” believed they were “living a life of sin” but their “hearts began to open” when they noticed “subtle signs of support and love” from their parish.
Reflecting on the testimony, the report asserts that homosexual relationships are not sinful, saying the testimony “bears witness to the discovery that sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfilment.”
The second testimony, written by an American also “married” to a man, began by saying his sexuality “isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God. I have a happy, healthy marriage and am flourishing as an openly gay Catholic.” He said he joined the Courage apostolate at the University of Notre Dame, making a point that it works with people who “suffer” from same-sex attraction.
The author of the testimony maintained that the apostolate “did little to help my spiritual and psychosexual development,” and added that the people he met were “lonely, hopeless, and often depressed.” The witness said Courage had been recommended to him by a “conversion therapist” — in another passage, the report’s authors conflated the witness’s words with the erroneous claim that Courage International was pushing reparative therapy which “had the effect of separating faith and sexuality.”
Courage International is a respected and canonically approved Catholic apostolate founded in 1980 to provide spiritual support to men and women experiencing same-sex attractions who wish to live chastely according to Church teaching. Moreover, the apostolate has long been adamant that “it does not provide, refer for, or require any form of therapy for its members.”
The witness went on to say it was when he studied for a doctorate at Jesuit Fordham University that he said he felt affirmed in his sexual identity. “The Catholicism that keeps me Catholic welcomes me as I am,” he wrote.
The report did not disclose the identity of the witness, although some observers, including the homosexual advocacy group New Ways Ministry, publicly speculated based on biographical details in the testimony that the author was a prominent advocate for normalizing same-sex relationships in the Church.
The synod report and testimonies have been enthusiastically welcomed by LGBTQ rights groups pushing for a normalization of same-sex relationships in the Church. Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry said the document was a “breath of refreshing air” that “surprised many because of how progressive it was.” Father James Martin called it a “big deal,” adding it was the “first time” a Vatican publication had included such testimonies. Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Church lobby group, said the most significant aspect to her was “the recognition that top-down trying to dictate behavior and morality on the basis of dogma isn’t working.”
Critics Respond
Those faithful to the Church’s moral teaching have strongly objected to the report.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller criticized the report’s authors, saying in a statement they “do not openly deny revealed truths, but set them aside and, alongside them, build their own house of a comfortable and world-conforming Christianity.” The former Vatican doctrinal chief condemned how “the pro-LGBT lobby” within the Church had “openly welcomed” such “heretical relativization of natural and sacramental marriage.”
Father Gerald Murray, a canonist and priest of the Archdiocese of New York, said he found the report “horrific” and a “subversive attempt to overthrow Catholic morality on the question of homosexuality.” He told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo May 7 that he believes the synod office has become a “public relations arm” of a pressure group seeking to subvert Catholic teaching “on the immoral nature of homosexual activity.” He also called it “an outrage” to use the testimony of a “lobbyist for the gay rights movement in the Catholic Church,” saying it was “manipulative of the synod office” to include it.
The report also unsurprisingly received opprobrium from Courage International. In a May 8 statement, it denounced the report, saying it committed “both calumny and detraction against the organization and its members.” The group repudiated the report’s claim that it engages in “reparative therapy” and argued that Synod officials could have verified this by simply contacting Courage leadership rather than relying on a single person’s account. It also defended its meetings as confidential, rather than “secretive” as the witness had claimed, emphasizing that this privacy enables members to speak openly about their struggles with loneliness and depression without fear of being publicly characterized.
The organization said it was a “great sadness” that such mischaracterization of Courage appeared in an official Vatican document rather than what would usually come from secular critics, and offered to meet with Synod officials to provide accurate information about its 45-year apostolate.
In comments to the Register, the executive director of Courage, Father Brian Gannon, also regretted that Courage was not represented in the study group, and that it chose two witnesses who each object to the Church’s moral teaching as “the sole sources.” This made it contradictory to the synod’s intentions, he told the Register. He also stressed that Courage does not engage in reparative therapy, adding that the “key to Courage’s ministry” is “personal accompaniment, and grace through the sacraments.”
Father Kyle Schnippel, a Courage chaplain and chair of the apostolate’s board of directors, said he found the report “disappointing” and “disheartening” for Courage’s members, especially because Pope Leo XIV had just met with its leaders. He stressed that Courage is about conversion — conversion to Jesus — and that when one lives “in accord with what the Church teaches, what Jesus teaches, we find peace.” He told the Register that his experience working with Courage as a priest for the past 12 years has made him a better priest, and he sees the good fruits of its ministry “every day.”
Both Father Gannon and Father Schnippel said they would like to see the hierarchy speak up about the problems with the report.
Mary Rice Hasson, a board member of Courage, said the study group report was “unethical” and “should be retracted.” She said she was unaware of a Vatican study group ever “publicly, purposefully, and arbitrarily” disparaging a “public, clerical association” of the faithful in good standing with the Church. “For a Vatican report to carelessly cast aspersions on Courage membership, while misrepresenting Courage’s mission, is a serious failure in its obligation towards charity and the truth,” Hasson told the Register. The study group’s actions, she added, “betray commitment to an ideological agenda over commitment to the truth.”
Cardinal Müller said the “LGBT ideology” advocates “nothing other than a materialistic view of humanity without God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Perfecter of humankind.”
He added: “Anyone who, as a teacher of the faith and shepherd of the faithful appointed by Christ, is truly interested in the inner peace of soul and the eternal salvation of the faithful entrusted to him, does not make people in difficult situations the playthings of a godless ideology or the instruments of his own desire for prominence in the woke milieu, but rather points them personally to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
The final report of Study Group 9, and all documents from the 2024 synod, will be subject to a process of evaluation and implementation, from the diocesan level to national episcopal conferences, beginning this summer and culminating in the final Ecclesial Assembly at the Vatican in October 2028.
