The Synodal Assembly of the Italian Church has approved a document that proposes the “recognition and accompaniment” of homosexual and transsexual persons, as well as their parents, and encourages support for civil initiatives against violence and discrimination. After four years of work, the text is presented as a pastoral opening, but it introduces formulations that, due to their ambiguity, blur the Christian anthropology and the central place of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman.
It is worth remembering a truism: everyone is welcome in the Church. Welcoming is not in question. What is debatable is that, under that indisputable premise, a language foreign to the Magisterium is adopted—with collectivizing acronyms and ideological categories—that ends up equating the family with objectively disordered relationships. By omitting an explicit reference to marriage and the family as a criterion for discernment, the document favors interpretations contrary to Catholic doctrine on the truth of human love.
The text invites to “overcome discriminatory attitudes” and to support initiatives against violence and discrimination based on sex or “gender”, as well as against pedophilia, school bullying, and femicide. However, by assuming without nuances the conceptual framework of gender ideology, it introduces a shift in the pastoral focus: from conversion and sacramental life to adherence to secular agendas that relativize the truth about the body, sexual difference, and procreation.
The final document, presented by the synodal path committee, is articulated around three priorities—co-responsibility, formation, and peace—and calls for greater weight for women in ecclesial bodies. But it lacks a clear affirmation of the doctrine on marriage and family that serves as a criterion for any pastoral accompaniment, and omits the necessary distinction between mercy toward persons and the legitimation of behaviors or identities contrary to the moral law.
In summary, the welcome that the Church offers to all—obvious and unquestionable truth—cannot become the gateway to a practical approval of ideologies that equate the family with realities incompatible with faith and reason. Pastoral charity demands doctrinal clarity: calling good, correcting evil, and guiding with truth those who, like all, are called to holiness.