The National Catholic Register reports on the final report of Study Group 9 from the 2024 Synod on Synodality, released in early May 2026. The document, which includes testimonies from two men in same-sex “marriages,” questions whether homosexual relations are sinful, and misrepresents the mission of Courage International, has drawn sharp criticism from faithful Catholics. Cardinal Gerhard Müller condemned the report for setting aside revealed truths, while Father Gerald Murray called it a “subversive attempt to overthrow Catholic morality.” Courage International denounced the report for calumny and detraction, noting it was never contacted for accurate information. The report’s embrace of “LGBT ideology” and its call for a “paradigm shift” away from centuries of Catholic moral teaching represents not merely a pastoral failure, but a systematic attempt to dismantle the Church’s immutable doctrine on the nature of sin, marriage, and the moral life — an act of apostasy that no synodal process can legitimize.
The Architecture of Apostasy: How Study Group 9 Constructs a Counter-Church
The very title of the report — “Theological Criteria and Synod Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues” — reveals its foundational deception. By replacing the word “controversial” with “emerging issues,” the authors perform an act of linguistic alchemy designed to transform settled Catholic dogma into negotiable opinion. This is not mere semantics; it is the methodological core of Modernism, condemned unequivocally by Saint Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), which rejected the proposition that “the dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Proposition 22). The report’s claim that a “paradigm shift” was initiated by the Second Vatican Council is a transparent attempt to weaponize the conciliar revolution against the Church’s own deposit of faith, precisely the error Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors when he anathematized those who claim “the Roman Pontiffs have wandered outside the limits of their powers” (Proposition 23).
The Catholic Church has always taught that her moral doctrine is not subject to development in the sense of reversal or contradiction. As the Council of Trent declared in its Decree on Justification (Session VI, Canon 21), the Church possesses a Lawgiver to whom men owe obedience — not a “relational conversion” that “demands learning through experience,” as this report grotesquely proposes. The very notion 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 fulfilment” — as the report asserts in its commentary on the first testimony — is a direct contradiction of the Church’s constant teaching. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the secularism that removes Jesus Christ and His most holy law from human customs, private life, and public life. This report does exactly what Pius XI lamented: it removes Christ’s law from the moral life of the faithful and replaces it with the dictates of a godless, materialistic ideology.
The Testimonies: Instruments of Ideological Subversion
The inclusion of two testimonies from men in same-sex “marriages” is not an act of pastoral listening; it is a calculated maneuver to normalize what the Church has always condemned as gravely sinful. The first witness, a Portuguese man, claims the Lord gave him all he needed to build a “life of shared faith and service with my husband.” The report then asserts — with breathtaking audacity — that this testimony “bears 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 fulfilment.” This statement is not merely erroneous; it is heretical. It directly contradicts the Church’s teaching, articulated consistently from Scripture through the Fathers and the Magisterium, that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357, citing Persona Humana, 1975). The Church has never taught that the root of sin is merely “a lack of faith” in the abstract; she has taught that specific acts — including homosexual acts — are sinful in themselves, regardless of the subjective disposition of the actor.
The second testimony, authored by Jason Steidl-Jack — a prominent advocate for normalizing same-sex relationships in the Church and author of LGBTQ Catholic Ministry: Past and Present with a foreword by the notorious Jesuit Father James Martin — is even more revealing. Steidl-Jack claims his sexuality “isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God,” and that he is “flourishing as an openly gay Catholic.” He further attacks Courage International, claiming the apostolate “did little to help my spiritual and psychosexual development” and that its members were “lonely, hopeless, and often depressed.” The report’s authors then conflate Steidl-Jack’s testimony with the erroneous claim that Courage International was pushing “reparative therapy,” which “had the effect of separating faith and sexuality.” This is a deliberate and malicious misrepresentation. As Courage International has stated unequivocally, it “does not provide, refer for, or require any form of therapy for its members.” The organization’s ministry is rooted in “personal accompaniment, and grace through the sacraments” — the very means Christ established for the sanctification of souls.
The Misrepresentation of Courage International: Calumny as Method
The report’s treatment of Courage International constitutes both calumny and detraction — sins against the eighth commandment that the Church has always condemned. The organization, canonically approved and in good standing with the Church for over 45 years, exists to provide spiritual support to men and women experiencing same-sex attractions who wish to live chastely according to Church teaching. Its mission is rooted in the Church’s constant teaching that all the faithful are called to chastity according to their state in life, and that the sacraments — particularly Confession and the Holy Eucharist — are the ordinary means of grace for overcoming temptation and growing in holiness.
Father Brian Gannon, executive director of Courage, rightly noted that the study group’s choice of two witnesses who each object to the Church’s moral teaching as “the sole sources” was contradictory to the synod’s stated intentions. Father Kyle Schnippel, a Courage chaplain, emphasized that Courage is about “conversion — conversion to Jesus” — and that when one lives “in accord with what the Church teaches, what Jesus teaches, we find peace.” This is the authentic Catholic understanding of conversion: not the accommodation of sin, but the transformation of the soul through grace. Mary Rice Hasson, a Courage board member, called the report “unethical” and said it “should be retracted,” noting that she was unaware of a Vatican study group ever “publicly, purposefully, and arbitrarily” disparaging a “public, clerical association” of the faithful in good standing.
The report’s refusal to contact Courage leadership before publishing its misrepresentations is not an oversight; it is evidence of an ideological commitment to an agenda that places the normalization of homosexual behavior above charity, truth, and the salvation of souls. As Cardinal Müller stated, the “LGBT ideology” advocates “nothing other than a materialistic view of humanity without God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Perfecter of humankind.” This is precisely the error Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors when he rejected the proposition that “no other forces are to be recognized except those which reside in matter, and all the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure” (Proposition 58).
The “Paradigm Shift”: Modernism’s Endgame
The report’s invocation of a “paradigm shift” initiated by the Second Vatican Council is the clearest possible evidence that this document is not a product of the Catholic Church, but of the conciliar sect that has occupied the Vatican since 1958. The hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture — condemned by Benedict XVI in his famous 2005 address to the Roman Curia, though he himself failed to apply it consistently — is here elevated to a methodological principle. The report seeks to replace the Church’s immutable moral teaching with a “pastorality” that treats sin as a matter of subjective experience rather than objective moral law.
This is the essence of the Modernism condemned by Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907): the reduction of religious truth to subjective experience, the denial of the Church’s authority to define dogmatically the proper sense of moral teaching, and the assertion that dogmas are not truths of divine origin but interpretations worked out by the human mind. The report’s three “modes” of discernment — “listening to ourselves,” “paying attention to reality,” and “summoning various forms of expertise” — are a parody of authentic Catholic discernment, which has always been grounded in listening to God through His Church, paying attention to the reality of sin and grace, and summoning the expertise of the Church’s saints, doctors, and magisterial documents.
The report’s authors include figures well known for heterodox positions: Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio, who has voiced theologically heterodox positions on homosexuality; Father Maurizio Chiodi, who has argued that contraception can be morally permissible and that homosexual relationships “under certain conditions” could be “the most fruitful way” for those with same-sex attractions; and Jesuit Father Carlo Casalone, who urged support for assisted suicide as a tactic to prevent the legalization of voluntary euthanasia. These are not men seeking to faithfully transmit the deposit of faith; they are men committed to its destruction.
The Silence That Condemns: What the Report Omits
Perhaps the most damning aspect of this report is not what it says, but what it omits. There is no mention of the Church’s teaching on the nature of sin — mortal, venial, original, and actual. There is no mention of the sacrament of Confession, the ordinary means by which the faithful receive forgiveness for grave sins. There is no mention of the Holy Eucharist, the “source and summit of the Christian life,” which requires the recipient to be in a state of grace. There is no mention of the Church’s teaching on chastity, the virtue by which the faithful integrate sexuality within the person in accordance with their state in life. There is no mention of the reality of hell, the eternal consequence of dying in a state of mortal sin without repentance.
This silence is not accidental; it is the hallmark of the conciliar sect’s systematic suppression of the supernatural. As the Syllabus of Errors warned, the errors of Modernism lead to the denial of the supernatural order, the reduction of religion to subjective experience, and the replacement of God’s law with human autonomy. The report’s omission of any reference to the Church’s sacramental life — the very means by which souls are saved — reveals its true character: it is not a pastoral document, but a manifesto for the normalization of sin.
The Duty of the Faithful: Rejection and Resistance
The final report of Study Group 9, and all documents from the 2024 synod, will be subject to a process of evaluation and implementation from the diocesan level to national episcopal conferences, culminating in the final Ecclesial Assembly at the Vatican in October 2028. The faithful must be clear: no synod, no study group, and no “pope” has the authority to change the Church’s moral teaching. As Saint Pius X declared in Lamentabili sane exitu, the Church’s teaching on faith and morals is not subject to “more exact judgments and corrections” by those who presume to sit in judgment upon it (Proposition 2).
The faithful are bound in conscience to reject this report and all similar attempts to normalize sin. As Cardinal Müller stated, “Anyone who, as a teacher of the faith and shepherd of the faithful appointed by Christ, is truly interested in the inner peace of soul and the eternal salvation of the faithful entrusted to him, does not make people in difficult situations the playthings of a godless ideology.” The Church’s teaching on homosexuality is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of divine law, revealed by God and taught infallibly by the Church. To deny this teaching is to deny Christ Himself, who said: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
The report’s authors, and all who promote its agenda, would do well to heed the words of Saint Paul: “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). These words are not subject to a “paradigm shift.” They are the eternal word of God, and no synod, no study group, and no “pope” has the authority to set them aside.
Source:
Critics Say Synod Report Undermines Church Teaching, Misrepresents Courage (ncregister.com)
Date: 08.05.2026