By elevating such testimonies without doctrinal commentary, the report effectively normalizes homosexual relationships within a Church context.<\/p>\n
The recently published report from Synod Study Group 9 represents a troubling departure from the Catholic Church’s consistent moral teaching. While the authors claim they lack “the expertise or, above all, the necessary ecclesiastical authorization” to address individual moral issues definitively, the report’s methodology and framework systematically undermine the Church’s ability to proclaim and apply her moral doctrine. This is not merely a technical deficiency \u2014 it is a fundamental contradiction of Catholic teaching that demands a forceful response.<\/p>\n
The most immediate concern involves the report\u2019s treatment of same-sex relationships. The document presents testimonies from individuals with homosexual attractions without providing the Church’s moral framework for understanding these experiences. The report says that one witness \u201cbears 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 fulfillment.\u201d The authors of the report reproduce this claim without correction or clarification.<\/p>\n
This witness\u2019s thinking is fundamentally flawed. Homosexual acts are intrinsically evil \u2014 this is settled Catholic doctrine. A believing Christian who engages in such acts certainly falls short in faith, insofar as he fails to trust in God’s grace, which enables him to avoid sin. But this does not mean the sin lies primarily in lack of faith rather than in the act itself, as the witness suggests. The authors\u2019 failure to clarify this point creates dangerous ambiguity.<\/p>\n
A second testimony is even more problematic. This witness first sought help from Courage International, the Catholic apostolate that teaches people who experience same-sex attractions to live in accordance with Church teaching on chastity. The report portrays Courage negatively, suggesting it \u201cseparates faith and sexuality,\u201d and falsely claiming that it provides conversion therapy. The witness ultimately finds refuge in Christian communities and with priests who welcome \u201cpeople who are rejected for belonging to the LGBT community.\u201d The clear implication is that this second witness, living in a homosexual relationship, is doing so with the support and approval of these priests and communities.<\/p>\n
By elevating such testimonies without doctrinal commentary, the report effectively normalizes homosexual relationships within a Church context. This represents a clear attempt to weaken the proclamation of Catholic moral teaching.<\/p>\n
The deeper problem lies in the report’s entire methodological framework. The authors subordinate everything to describing a \u201csynodal process\u201d focused on people\u2019s practices and experiences. They explicitly reject what they call \u201cabstractly proclaiming and deductively applying principles that are set out in an immutable and rigid manner.\u201d Instead, they advocate for maintaining a \u201cfruitful tension between what has been established in the Church\u2019s doctrine and Her pastoral practice and the practices of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
This language sounds pastoral and Christ-centered, but it conceals a radical departure from Catholic moral theology. The authors invoke Jesus\u2019s statement that \u201cthe Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath\u201d to suggest that moral norms cannot be absolute \u2014 that there must be exceptions based on individual circumstances and experiences. This is a fundamental misreading of Scripture.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019s teaching about the Sabbath concerned divine positive law \u2014 norms revealed in Scripture that are not intrinsically absolute unless they coincide with natural law. The Jewish liturgical laws have indeed lapsed in the New Testament. But the moral law concerning marriage and sexuality is of an entirely different character. These norms flow from the natural law, which reflects God\u2019s purposes in creating human beings, marriage, and sexuality itself.<\/p>\n
God created marriage as a mutual total self-giving between a man and a woman, through which they can transmit human life. Sexual differentiation and openness to life are essential elements of this total gift. Sexual acts between persons of the same sex cannot constitute such a total gift because they are closed to the transmission of life by their very nature. Any act that violates God\u2019s creative intentions for marriage and sexuality is always impermissible, without exception. These are absolute norms of natural law, established to protect non-negotiable values.<\/p>\n
The report creates deliberate ambiguity on precisely this point. The authors write that \u201cthe universal truth of the human, in its historical expression, cannot therefore be determined once and for all, but is found in the concrete forms of different cultures, in an unceasing dialogue.\u201d They suggest that arriving at moral knowledge requires a long-term synodal process of listening across cultures and experiences.<\/p>\n
This is simply false. The intentions with which God created the human person in the context of marriage and sexuality are universal truths, established once and for all, that human beings can know spontaneously through natural moral law, and can be found in Sacred Scripture. Saint Paul teaches that when Gentiles \u201cdo instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts\u201d (Romans 2:14-15). <\/p>\n
The report\u2019s rejection of applying universal moral truths to specific actions becomes even clearer in its principle of \u201cpastorality.\u201d This principle guides the \u201cdiscernment of emerging issues\u201d within the synodal process. The commission prefers the phrase \u201cemerging issues\u201d to \u201ccontroversial issues\u201d because “the logic of emergence emphasizes the capacity of the entire People of God to \u2018stay with the trouble\u2019\u201d rather than solve problems.<\/p>\n
In practice, this means avoiding \u201ca problem-solving perspective, or that of those who presume to deduce action from the simple application of norms.\u201d The commission seeks not \u201ca generalizable solution\u201d but rather \u201cconcrete ways to initiate a process in the form of listening.\u201d This represents \u201cthe overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a \u2018pre-packaged\u2019 doctrine.\u201d In other words, the report sweeps aside the application of Church doctrine and classical moral theology in pastoral care and confession.<\/p>\n
This stems from a persistent misunderstanding that has plagued pastoral theology since the 1960s: the notion that pastoral care consists in finding compromises between the Church’s moral teaching and the concrete reality of people\u2019s lives. This approach assumes moral truth has a dual status \u2014 abstract doctrinal truth on one hand, concrete existential truth on the other \u2014 with priority given to the latter to create room for exceptions to universal norms.<\/p>\n
Pope John Paul II forcefully rejected this approach in Veritatis Splendor: \u201cOn this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called \u2018pastoral\u2019 solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a \u2018creative\u2019 hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept.\u201d<\/p>\n
True pastoral care does not seek compromises with moral truth. The shepherd leads people to the truth, which is ultimately found in the Person of Jesus Christ. He must encourage those in his care to align their actions with the truth as set forth in moral norms. There is no genuine pastoral charity in obscuring moral truth or suggesting that universal norms admit of exceptions based on individual circumstances.<\/p>\n
Study Group 9’s report fundamentally contradicts Catholic moral teaching and thoroughly undermines its application to moral conduct. It relativizes the Church’s moral doctrine, with consequences that extend far beyond questions of sexuality to the protection of human life itself. This report must be forcefully refuted.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the faithful can be assured that a number of cardinals and bishops will make their objections known to the Roman Magisterium. <\/p>\n
The Church’s teaching is not obscure, nor is it subject to revision through synodal processes. It is the truth that sets us free.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Willem Eijk is the Archbishop of Utrecht, Holland. A former physician, he has served as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2004. He is the author of the 2025 book, The Bond of Love: Catholic Teaching on Marriage and Sexual Ethics, published by Emmaus Academic.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by NCRegister.<\/p>\n