By A Vatican synod study group’s final report includes testimony from two men in civil marriages with other men and calls for a listening-based approach to difficult doctrinal and pastoral questions.
The Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod published Tuesday the testimonies of two men in civil marriages with other men who describe from personal experience the tensions and wounds that have marked their life of faith within the Church.
It is the first time a Vatican text has given voice to this group in such detail. One testimony is from a man in Portugal who said he suffered a deep wound when a spiritual director suggested he could have been married to a woman to “find peace” and “use my gifts,” minimizing the affective dimension of marriage.
The man said the suggestion was painful because “it was a suggestion to harm a woman by robbing her of the chance to be completely loved and desired, all to fulfill a social expectation.” From that point, he said, he began excluding his relationship and affective life from his prayer.
The Synod also published the testimony of a U.S. Catholic man in a civil marriage with another man, an immigrant, and active in parish life. “My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God,” he wrote. “I have a happy, healthy marriage and am flourishing as an openly gay Catholic.”
Both testimonies are written in English and are published on the Synod website as annexes to the final report of Study Group 9, titled “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues.”
The U.S. testimony recalls the author’s experience with Courage, a Catholic apostolate that supports people with same-sex attraction who seek to live chastely according to Church teaching. Pope Leo XIV received members of Courage at the Vatican on Feb. 6.
The man wrote that he went to the group at the suggestion of a conversion therapist he had met to deal with his “condition.” He added: “I tried in vain to date a Catholic woman, but our relationship failed when my family faced a crisis. The time had come to be honest with myself, God, and others.”
The 32-page report, published first in Italian and presented in English as a working translation, is not a definitive doctrinal proposal. Rather, it outlines a methodological shift and will now be presented to Pope Leo XIV for study.
Drawing from the testimonies, the Synod study group says the first account describes “the devastating effects of reparative therapies aimed at recovering heterosexuality” and “contradictory advice” such as suggestions to marry a woman in order to “find peace.”
The report proposes a new approach based on listening and dialogue for addressing “emerging doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues,” including the experience of “people of faith with same-sex attractions.”
The text is rooted in what it calls the “principle of pastorality,” which stresses that Christian proclamation must take account of concrete persons and their lived experience. It proposes a change in approach to some of the most delicate questions in the life of the Church.
The report does not seek to offer total solutions but to open a path of discernment. Instead of speaking of “controversial” issues, as the subject of the report was originally announced, it proposes calling them “emerging” issues, understood as experiences that prompt the Church to rethink how to live and transmit the Gospel in diverse contexts.
The document explicitly recognizes the difficulty of harmonizing doctrine and pastoral practice. It says testimonies received by the study group show “how arduous it is for individuals and Christian communities to reconcile ‘doctrinal firmness’ with ‘pastoral welcome.’” It adds that polarized positions often result in “profound suffering, personal lacerations, and experiences of marginalization or ‘double lives’” for believers with same-sex attraction.
In this context, the report proposes a method based on three steps within what it calls “conversation in the Spirit”: listening to ourselves, paying attention to reality, and summoning various forms of expertise.
The text says this dynamic of listening seeks to foster a synodal Church in which the people of God actively participate in discernment.
The report also stresses the importance of paying attention to those living on existential, social, and cultural “peripheries.” It cites other examples of “emerging issues,” including the rise of adult catechumens in some local Churches, which it says calls for rethinking pastoral structures.
In addition to the testimonies of two homosexual persons, Study Group 9 includes an experience of active nonviolence, as witnessed by a Serbian youth movement that helped bring about the peaceful fall of President Slobodan Milošević on Oct. 5, 2000, drawing inspiration in part from the first Christians.
The Synod also published the final report of another study group, Study Group 7, on criteria for selecting candidates for bishop.
That report says bishops should be evaluated not only for moral integrity, doctrinal orthodoxy, pastoral sensitivity, leadership ability, and capacity to administer Church goods but also for “synodal competencies.” It quotes Pope Leo XIV as saying that a bishop’s duty is “to build communion among its members and with the universal Church by fostering the variety of gifts and ministries given for its own growth and for the spread of the Gospel.”
The report also asks the dicasteries of the Roman Curia to review their procedures in a more synodal spirit and proposes regular independent evaluation of the processes for selecting bishops.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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“Synod report condemns ‘devastating effects’ of conversion therapies for homosexual persons”
Without doubt, these synodalistas are homosexuals or homosexual sympathizers.
Oh, and by the way, there’s no such reality as a “homosexual person.” God created man as male and female persons. Get it straight!
Interesting this is the first article here on CWR (or seems to be) of this particular document.
I recall a CWR article combining two abbreviated reports, one on this topic and the other concluding that the deaconess thingy was off the table. Probably November 2025.
I refer not to the topics–which have been discussed at length here at CWR and elsewhere–but to the recently published report: “Study Group 9, titled “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues.” (Anna has produced links to the report, which is published on the Vatican synod website synod.va)
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This study report, which I am guessing is a kind of magisterial document because “Synod on Synodality”, seems pretty clear to me that the shift to reorganizing the Church’s “family life” teachings are well underway.
The Pope, the Vatican, the bishops go against Holy Scripture and even Saint Augustine. And the word “formal” leaves open “informal blessings.” Is he sanctioning or firing Marx (what an appropriate name…). See what Holy Scripture and Augustine, the patron saint of the Pope’ order say:
Romans 1:26-27
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
Thank you, dear Oscar, for the highly pertinent Holy Scriptures from Romans 1 and from 1 Corinthians 6.
Where does the IMPERTINENCE & INSOLENT DISOBEDIENCE to GOD come from in those clergy & lay who willing flout such DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS?
Further: many good Catholics have observed the connections between paganism, witchcraft, freemasonry, new-ageism, etc. and active homosexuality and approval of homosexuality in others.
This cadre are fervid proslytizers, endangering the whole flock, especially young Catholic men and women in every parish, school & youth group.
May GOD – Father, Son, & Holy Spirit guide us in how to stop this rot, that is progressively destroying the hope of Heaven in so many Catholics.
Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
I am reading those testimonies. A quote from ‘Testimony #2’
“My 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. It’s taken years of prayer, therapy, and affirming community to get here, but I thank God for my sexuality and station in life. If I could choose to be gay, I would, because it’s a powerful and beautiful way of reflecting God’s image in the world. Being a gay man makes me more empathetic, caring, passionate about justice, and creative. Of course, I have my faults, insecurities, and sin, too, but these are unrelated to my sexual orientation.”
Leaving the objective biological reality aside, a person claims that being a gay makes him “more empathetic, caring, passionate about justice, and creative” while believing that his faults and sin are unconnected to his homosexuality. In effect, he feels “chosen” to be homosexual, chosen by God. The Church now is supposed to bless this spiritual delusion as an act of “acceptance”.
So here is the choice the Church has now: either to stick to the obvious and call a biological disorder a disorder (and provide a good pastoral care for those who suffering it) or to blaspheme saying “yes, you are chosen by God Who willed that you try to engage in an unnatural act – it is His gift to you, it makes you a better human being”.
I have a huge compassion for those with various disorders including this one and believe they should receive adequate pastoral care. But here we have a paradox: one who believes his disorder is a gift of God which makes him better human being does not need pastoral care at all. All he needs is an agreement with his delusional stance. And so, I believe that ‘Synod of Synodality’ is not concerned with a pastoral care which the Church has had in place for centuries – it is concerned only with calling a disorder “a norm” or even “a gift of God”.
This is my very brief comment; I have yet to read it all. I urge all to read those testimonies; they are found here
https://www.synod.va/en/the-synodal-process/phase-3-the-implementation/the-study-groups/final-reports/group-9.html
Interesting they don’t have testimonies from “gay couples” and those in the “gay” lifestyle that have gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Lifesite news is reporting today that one the “anonymous” witnesses (to homosexuality being “a gift”) is actually Jason Steidl, who wrote a book on the subject: “LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, Past and Present.” His marriage was blessed by Father James Martin a year or so ago.
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Apparently, the report had input from (I assume a group effort, so no one single author) Italian moral theologian Father Maurizio Chiodi (who is on the committee) who is a professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family. With credentials like that, it seems fair to say the Church is shifting her outlook.
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Anna,
Excellent comments, but I do want to disagree with “stick to the obvious and call a biological disorder…”. It’s more mysterious than that, and I do not believe that biology will ever explain it. It is clear from St. Paul that there is a spiritual component. There is also currently a complex interaction between cultural conceptualizations and the person’s internal experience and sense of self. This is most evident in transgenderism, but has been there all along with how we classify homosexual thoughts and behaviors. None of that is (simply) biological.
Anyway, I agree with almost everything you’ve said, but wanted to nuance that one thought.
Mark
Mark, of course there is a spiritual (and psychological) component in this issue. However, the most obvious fact, to a non-indoctrinated by LGBTQ+ ideology mind is that two men (or two women) are not designed (by nature as species or by God) to engage in sexual relationships with each other thus to do so is a biological aberration/disorder. Their sexual organs do not match; no matter what they try, they cannot conceive without using “something” from the opposite sex. This obvious reality, that M’s sexual organs do not match another M’s sexual organs because M is designed to match W (created/evolved as such) can be understood by any person of any faith or by an atheist. Clearly, male and female are two “primary bricks” of the creation. It is like Lego; if those two primary “atoms”/parts are placed wrong AND, most importantly, this mismatch is proclaimed to be a norm, then the whole creation begins turning into its own parody/its opposite. Relatively recently, the world accepted biological aberration as a norm – first time in the history of humanity (homosexuality was accepted before as a phenomenon but never as equal to a normal marriage based on biological reality and capable of procreation); now it needs the Church to bless it, to say that a lie is the truth. It is a new creation based on a lie which is now in the making. The major problem here is not with some people having a same sex attraction (it is expected for fallen world full or twists) – the problem is with blessing it as a norm and even good.
I also noticed something interesting: two “testimonies” are from homosexual men. There is no even one testimony from a homosexual woman. There is also a glaring superiority over “straight”/women, palpable in the testimony #2. Put two facts together and you get misogyny: “superior” homosexual males proclaim they are chosen by God to be such and this is God’s gift”. I cannot help but see that the recent report on homosexuality as not a creation of struggling common homosexual believers, but of clearly narcissistic homosexual misogynistic men in “superior” positions in the Church, for example homosexual clergy – or at least it was directed and shaped by such clerics. It is quite an incredible self-revelation, about who they are and what they want. Another very interesting aspect is that “the authors” of the testimonies said nothing about their conflict “their life – Church’s theology”, as if the theology re: sin of such relationships does not exist. Again, to me it looks like a duplicity of practicing homosexual clergy who feel entitled to do what they want because they are “superior”.
Finally, in the aforementioned testimony #2 it is said “If I could choose to be gay, I would, because it’s a powerful and beautiful way of reflecting God’s image in the world”. A thought occurred to me, that for a homosexual man “married” to another man it is natural to identify with Christ and God the Father as “both males, sitting on the throne, no females” – just like for an intimate life of a male homosexual couple there are no females, so to speak. It is a kingdom of men only. What is more interesting here: if such a couple of men go for “having children”, they typically would “employ a womb” – a woman who is denied the attachment to own child; a child is “created” for two men and then denies a mother. Not just that, a child is told that it is a norm; here the warped “norm” of “you do not need a mother” is a direct and inevitable consequence of calling “a homosexual couple” = “a same sex marriage” a norm. This is how human psychology is damaged, but, since Our Lord is both Man and God, psychology and theology are interconnected.
To employ “a womb” = to deny an attachment between a biological mother and her child is an antithesis of how God proceeded with the Incarnation. Being a God, He could use “a womb” of the Virgin Mary but not only He never severed an attachment of the Mother to Her Child (for all eternity where She is still the Mother of Jesus Christ), He also found a step-father for His Son, St Joseph. He did it because a child needs a mother and a father, the normality of M + W family (or their corresponding substitutes, M and W attachment figures) and, most importantly, God cannot sever an attachment of a child to his mother – it is evil and contrary both to who He is (Love and Truth) and to His creation.
And so, being seen through the prism of the Gospels, “the homosexual marriage”, being recognized as such by the Church, is not just a biological aberration – it is also a destruction of the most fundamental vector of the creation – of an attachment of children to their biological parents(and vice versa) and, paradoxically, of the Gospels which tell us the story of an attachment, of God to us and of how that attachment acted in our world.
This is an example of the psychological and theological reality being bent by the recent ‘S of S’ report.
PS You can read more in my paper ‘Abomination of desolation’
https://orthodox-christian-icons.com/abomination-of-desolation.html
It describes what is happening now and its consequences, especially for children.
I have just read on ‘LifeSiteNews’ that the author of Testimony#2 (which glaring entitlement stunned me) was written by one of the two (a homosexual couple) blessed by an infamous Fr James Martin, SJ.
So, we only have two testimonies on homosexualism, one of them (50% of all testimonies) written by a gay activist and a friend of another, clerical, super-gay-activist.
I would be far more interested to hear from non-activists, men and women who struggle with same sex attraction and who try to live their Christianity. What do such people who accept that they have a disorder need from the Church? How can we improve the support of such people and of people with other disorders and problems: cPTSD, autism, bipolar, CFS, victims of various forms of abuse and so on. Because we are all disordered and problematic, to various degrees, it boils down to “How can we support each other on our way to union with Christ in this messed up world?” This, I believe, should be the true agenda of ‘S of S’.
Returning to the “testimonies”. A very telling fact, that we have only two testimonies (one written by the pusher of a normalizing homosexual acts by the Church, another one I have not read yet) made me recall my own experience during the local ‘S of S’ sessions. While analyzing the given materials I discovered a deliberate omission of the testimonies of the sexually abused laity by the local clergy, in the final report. I had to write my own paper re: that matter and then to fight with ‘S of S’ coordinator (who attempted to shut me up) to be able to present my findings to the group. I managed to make myself heard – but only to discover that no one was interested in my report. The local ‘S of S’ clearly had a very different agenda while parroting the phrases about abstract “acceptance, mutuality, understanding, listening” and so on – curiously while showing no empathy for the real victim of abuse.
I believe that in the “testimonies” we have a continuation of that practice called “listening” which has nothing to do with listening but is simply a “nice” method of pushing a certain agenda – an agenda that has little to do with empathy and compassion.
I’ll go with Diane Montagna on this report,
Translation of the Synod’s Report: Homosexuals are helpless, innocent victims who need support and affirmation. We shouldn’t call them out on their sin; we should not demand repentance; and we should not heed the clear testimony of biblical teaching and the magisterium regarding the sinfulness of same sex relationships; and we should manipulate the term “discernment” from being able to ascertain truth to distorting and redefining truth. Thanks for finally saying out loud what you have been thinking for a long time now.
We read: “The report does not seek to offer total solutions but to open a path of discernment.” Instead of selected anecdotal testimony, also discern the science about cases of surgery:
Six years ago, the authors of the myth-making 2019 study (Richard Bränström, Ph.D., and John E. Pachankis, Ph.D.), which claimed that so-called gender-transition surgery may improve the long-term mental health of recipients, issued a CORRECTION, nearly a year after the first publication:
“The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care.” Also, “Individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had received gender-affirming surgery were more likely to be treated for anxiety disorders compared with individuals diagnosed with gender incongruence who had not received gender-affirming surgery.” A case study of egregious statistical error (19 cases in ten million) and, today, of the delay and difficulty in refuting premature, white-suit pronouncements.
Here’s the link: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/08/04/researchers-reverse-gender-surgery-offers-no-advantage-to-mental-health/
It did not require a Nostradamus to foretell that this is where Synodality was going. Reducing serious theological discussion of doctrine to an open forum discussion club makes such results inevitable.
Expect more and conceivably worse. Synodality is not what the Catholic Church is nor is it what she was instituted by Christ to do.
Drawing from the testimonies, the Synod study group says the first account describes “the devastating effects of reparative therapies aimed at recovering heterosexuality” and “contradictory advice” such as suggestions to marry a woman in order to “find peace.”
*****
When you read the biographies of men educated in British boarding schools/ universities there’s a common experience of having close SSA relationships & then going on to marry women & found families. SSA was thought a stage of development that young men would outgrow. Not a lifelong identity.
In the myopia of synodal “pastorality,” the red hats lose peripheral vision as they zero in on anecdotal groupthink. Two points for more authentic discernment:
FIRST, “According to certain theologians, this kind of “biologistic or naturalistic argumentation” would even be present in certain documents of the Church’s Magisterium, particularly those dealing with the area of sexual and conjugal ethics. It was, they maintain, on the basis of a naturalistic understanding of the sexual act that contraception, direct sterilization, autoeroticism, pre-marital sexual relations, homosexual relations and artificial insemination were condemned as morally unacceptable [….] In their view, man, as a rational being, not only can but actually ‘must freely determine the meaning’ of his behavior” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 47).
SECOND, just as politics is downstream of culture, so too is the homosexual lifestyle often downstream of getting locked-in by early experimentation. The bisexual and conflicted novelist Andre Gide, is exposed thusly:
“[Gide] emphatically protests that he has not a word to say against marriage and reproduction (but then) suggests that it would be of benefit to an adolescent, before his desires are fixed, to have a love affair with an older man, instead of with a woman. . . the general principle admitted by Gide, elsewhere in his treatise, that sexual practice tends to stabilize in the direction where it has first found satisfaction [!]; to inoculate a youth with homosexual tastes seems an odd way to prepare him for matrimony” (Harold March, “Gide and the Hound of Heaven,” University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952).
Take heart dear Anna.
It’s common, when witnessing to the truth given to us by Christ, to find that we are disrespected and not listened to, e.g. John 15:20-21 –
“Remember the word that I (Jesus) said to you: ‘Servants are no greater than their master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they kept My word they will keep yours also.”
“But they will do all these things to you on account of My Name, because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
Much of the time our calling in Christ is as witnesses who are rejected, even punished! Yet, good & faithful servants will keep on witnessing; and the Holy Angels, Saints, & Martyrs will rejoice that Christ’s word is still being made known!
In such circumstance, this is my very favorite music . . .
Bing Videos “My labour is not in vain” CityAlight YouTube