The General Secretariat of the Synod published on Tuesday two new final reports from the synodal study groups. The documents address issues related to the figure of the bishop and to various doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical matters.
The Study Group No. 9, dedicated precisely to the so-called “emerging issues” proposes a methodological and terminological change within the Church: abandoning the expression “controversial issues” to replace it with one centered on “relational conversion,” listening, and community discernment.
The text maintains that the Church must promote a “paradigm shift” inspired by Vatican II and based on a new “hermeneutic of the human,” where truth does not appear formulated “once and for all,” but developed historically in dialogue with cultures, communities, and personal experiences.
The document proposes listening to “homosexual experiences”
Group 9 avoids formulating doctrinal conclusions or explicit moral judgments. Instead, it proposes that ecclesial communities develop discernment processes based on personal testimonies and the so-called “conversation in the Spirit,” expressly recognizing that the debate has not been closed “with a final pronouncement,” but rather paths have been opened for future ethical-theological discernments.
The report applies this method to concrete cases that it presents as «examples of life» to argue the 32 pages published: two extensive testimonies from civilly married homosexual men with other men and another on active non-violence in war contexts.
“Sharing my life with another man has been the truest expression of myself”
The first testimony corresponds to a Portuguese Catholic who recounts how he lived his homosexuality in silence for years within ecclesial environments where the topic was hardly mentioned. He recalls a youth marked by a sense of isolation and the need to lead “a double life,” while trying to understand feelings that—as he explains—did not fit into what was then considered normal.
The author assures that the change came when he met the man with whom he has been in a relationship for twenty years and whom he presents as his husband. “Sharing a life of faith, service, and love with him has been the truest expression of myself,” he states in the text, where he insists that his homosexuality is an inseparable part of his personal identity.
Throughout the account, the participant criticizes conversion therapies and certain pastoral responses from the Church, which he describes as deeply painful experiences. He also maintains that his homosexual relationship has allowed him to live values such as fidelity, commitment, and service to others, to the point of affirming that he sees in it “a sign of God” in his life.
“My sexuality is not a disorder, but a gift from God”
Even more explicit is the second testimony, from the United States. The author, also married to another man, begins by outright rejecting the Church’s traditional view of homosexuality. “My sexuality is not a perversion, disorder, or cross; it is a gift from God,” he writes.
The account describes his years of inner conflict within conservative Catholic environments and his time in Courage, the ecclesial apostolate for people with same-sex attraction who wish to live in accordance with Catholic doctrine. Far from presenting that experience as helpful, the author describes it as a “secret” environment, marked by loneliness and hopelessness.
As he explains, the decisive turning point came during his theology studies at Fordham University, where he says he found “new forms of theology” that led him to «reinterpret the Bible» and fully accept his homosexuality. There he also began to frequent parishes with LGBT ministries, environments that he presents as spaces of welcome and full integration within the Church.
The testimony also includes direct criticisms of the Vatican and some recent statements by Pope Francis on homosexuality and transgenderism. Even so, the author maintains that during Francis’s pontificate he has perceived “a conversion” in the Church regarding the LGBT world and expresses his hope of contributing to a “more inclusive” Church.
James Martin celebrates a “historic step”
The publication of these testimonies was immediately celebrated by Jesuit James Martin, one of the most visible figures in the LGBT lobby within the Church and founder of Outreach.
Martin described the inclusion of these accounts in an official Synod document as “an important, even historic, change for the Church.” He states that this is the first time a Vatican report has incorporated such detailed testimonies from LGBT Catholics.
The Jesuit defended that the simple fact of “listening” to homosexual people already represents a significant advance for the Church and presented the synodal process as a progressive validation of LGBT claims within Catholicism.
Martin’s triumphalist tone and that of the Outreach environment reflect how the sectors most favorable to a doctrinal and pastoral change on homosexual matters interpret this Group 9 report: not as a merely methodological document, but as a new step within the process of normalization and integration of homosexual relationships into the life of the Church.
A “paradigm shift” that breaks with the Catholic conception of truth
This approach represents a profound shift with respect to the traditional Catholic conception of revealed truth. The Church’s doctrine does not arise from changing cultural consensuses or subjective experiences, but from divine Revelation transmitted by Christ and guarded by the Church that allows us to understand, from the Truth, the reality of man.
The Group 9 document shifts the doctrinal foundation toward categories such as “experience,” “relational conversion,” and “community discernment,” introducing a logic in which the concrete reality of people ends up conditioning the Church’s moral and pastoral understanding.
Precisely for this reason, the text avoids speaking of sin, moral disorder, or conversion, and opts for a language centered almost exclusively on listening, inclusion, and accompaniment. The result is an approach where subjective experience progressively acquires greater weight than revealed Truth, opening the door to increasingly ambiguous interpretations of moral issues already defined by Catholic teaching.