Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, spoke on June 20 at the Outreach conference, an initiative promoted by Jesuit James Martin and aimed at Catholics who identify as LGBT.
During his address to nearly 500 attendees, McElroy addressed issues related to mercy, holiness, sexual morality, the synodal process, and doctrinal development. He presented recent statements by Leo XIV on ecclesial unity, as well as the conclusions of the Synod on Synodality’s Study Group 9, which he defended as part of Francis’s legacy, as reasons for hope for the Church’s future. He also questioned what he sees as an excessive emphasis on sexual sins in the life of the Church and advocated for an understanding of doctrine closely connected to the concrete experience of the faithful.
Beyond the summaries that can be drawn from this address, the full text allows us to understand firsthand Cardinal McElroy’s thinking on some of the issues currently occupying ecclesial debate.
Below we offer the complete translation of the address, originally published by Outreach:
Cardinal Walter Kasper, in his magnificent book on mercy, states that the greatest attribute of God in His relationship with humanity is mercy. For it is precisely when we approach the Lord, radiant in our humility and seeing ourselves as we truly are, that we grasp the magnificence of divine Grace and the utterly undeserved embrace of the pure love that God grants us in every moment of our existence.
Mercy is God’s first word to us. Mercy is God’s great gift to us. Mercy is the ambient culture of the Church, which contemplates both the sinfulness of the human person and the striving for redemption and holiness—the seeds of grace planted in the fertile soil of our hearts and souls, capable of guiding us through our failures, our periods of wandering, and our moments of ecstasy and resilience on this earthly pilgrimage we are undertaking.
In today’s second reading from the Letter to the Romans, Paul reflects on that abundant mercy of God when he speaks of sin in our lives and true redemption (5:12-15). He frankly acknowledges that every woman and every man is immersed in sin, and that we have all contributed to the rupture of God’s plan for humanity—a rupture that torments our world and tears at our souls.
But in the beautiful final words of the passage, Paul makes clear that humanity’s sin is overshadowed by the grace God has granted us in redemption: “But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of one the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.”
The gift is not like the transgression. It is far deeper, broader, and more transcendent. It is precisely in light of this reality that we can understand God’s mercy in our lives and in the life of the Church. This does not mean that our sins are peripheral in our lives or in our Christian discipleship.
On the contrary, God’s mercy, precisely because of its immense goodness, calls us to recognize and confront our sinful condition and to acknowledge how it tarnishes the beauty of our souls and the blessings of our world. Honesty and integrity are the foundations of the Christian moral life, and we live as Christians convinced that we are called to conform our hearts to the virtues of Jesus Christ: faith, integrity, compassion, sacrifice, a spirit of prayer, hope, chastity, forgiveness, and deep love. This is the path to holiness for all of us, and it demands the rejection of sin in all its dimensions.
As we gather for this conference in a Church that has so often wounded the LGBT community through judgment and exclusion, we should find great hope in two significant events that have taken place during the pontificate of Pope Leo and that constitute rich seeds for the development of the Gospel in the years to come.
As we gather for this conference in a Church that has so often wounded the LGBT community through judgment and exclusion, we should find great hope in two significant events that have taken place during the pontificate of Pope Leo…
Interestingly, neither of these events focuses specifically on LGBT issues or persons. They focus on the call to holiness for every believer and on how it can be lived in the concrete realities of the modern world.
The first reason for hope is found in the reflection Pope Leo offered during his inspiring trip to Africa. Speaking to journalists, the Pope said that “unity or division in the Church should not revolve around sexual issues.” This simple statement puts the call to chastity into context as a component of the Christian moral life. Too often, both in magisterial statements and at the popular level, sexual sins have been condemned with an ardor that, in the eyes of many believers, places them as the central moral obligation of Christians. This is absolutely contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Pope Leo points to the comparative importance of economic justice, war and peace, immigration, and racism as key elements of the Christian moral life, he is rejecting this false reductionism that concentrates moral obligations in the sexual sphere.
The second event of great importance for understanding our call to holiness in the contemporary world is the publication of the report of the Synod’s Study Group 9 of 2024. This Study Group had the great task of applying Pope Francis’s pastoral theology in an integrated way with Catholic teaching and practice. Study Group 9 boldly presented its conclusions in favor of a new paradigm based on the kerygma:
“The Church’s mission does not consist in proclaiming in an abstract way and deductively applying principles formulated in an immutable and rigid manner, but in fostering a living encounter with the person of the risen Lord Jesus through engagement with the lived experience of faith of the people of God… in relation to the diverse situations of life and the numerous cultural contexts.”
In its anthropology, the report is innovative: “Each person is a singularity whose integrity and uniqueness are constituted in relation to the other, to society, and to culture.” This emphasis on singularity reflects the precious value spoken of in today’s Gospel regarding the sparrow. How much greater is each one of us in our singularity in the eyes of God, who understands the folds of our heart and delights in the diverse beauty of our humanity. Seen in this light, the call to holiness is a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ that envelops the totality of our life and calls us to walk together in the life of the Church: unique, yet formed together in Jesus Christ.
“Pastoral practice… proceeds from the conviction that the concrete situations in which people find themselves are constitutive dimensions of the way in which doctrine must be formed in light of the kerygma.”
Jesus’s pastoral method followed a specific and constant model. First, the Lord welcomed those who came to Him seeking help. Then, He helped them with the problem that burdened them. Only then did He call them to conversion. This model must be constantly reflected in the Church’s pastoral practice and in our own pastoral action toward those we encounter in our life within the context of faith.
I believe this is the greatest contribution Pope Francis made to the life of the Church: the call to reform our conception of pastoral theology and to see it as a central element for understanding the call of the Gospel and the formation of Catholic teaching. Pastoral practice does not consist in understanding how to apply to concrete situations a set of already formed and often reified principles. It proceeds from the conviction that the concrete situations in which people find themselves are constitutive dimensions of the way in which doctrine must be formed in light of the kerygma.
We gather while the fruits of synodality are still becoming visible. Let us pray that, in the conversations that will unfold in the spirit guiding us in the years ahead, the entire people of God may advance toward the future that God is building for our Church.