Italian bishops’ conference, led by Cardinal Zuppi, approves controversial synodal document urging “recognition” of homoaffective and transgender persons.
Newsroom (11/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) In a move that has intensified months of internal Catholic debate over sexual morality, the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) has overwhelmingly approved a final document from its four-year “Cammino Sinodale” that explicitly calls on local Churches to “promote the recognition and accompaniment of homoaffective and transgender persons.”
The vote, concluded on October 25 after being postponed from spring due to dissatisfaction with earlier drafts, saw the text approved both globally and paragraph-by-paragraph, as is customary in CEI assemblies. The most contested sections – paragraph 30 C and D – nevertheless passed comfortably despite receiving the highest number of “non placet” votes (154 and 185 respectively, out of approximately 220 voting bishops).
Paragraph 30C states: “That local Churches, overcoming the discriminatory attitude sometimes prevalent in ecclesial circles and in society, commit themselves to promoting the recognition and accompaniment of homoaffective and transgender persons, as well as their parents, who already belong to the Christian community.”
Paragraph 30D adds: “That the CEI support with prayer and reflection the ‘days’ promoted by civil society to combat all forms of violence and show closeness to those who are hurt and discriminated against (days against gender violence and discrimination, paedophilia, bullying, femicide, homophobia, and transphobia, etc.).”
Critics immediately interpreted the language – particularly the terms “recognition,” “accompaniment,” and the explicit mention of “homophobia” and “transphobia” alongside Pride-related initiatives – as the strongest official endorsement yet by a national episcopal conference of homosexual and transgender lifestyles.
At a post-assembly press conference, Archbishop Erio Castellucci, vice-president of the CEI and president of the National Committee for the Synodal Journey, sought to contain the fallout. He insisted the text does not endorse Gay Pride events and that “recognition” does not imply moral approval of homosexual acts or gender transition.
“‘Recognising’ does not mean approving morally,” Castellucci said. “It means acknowledging the reality of the person and their dignity. ‘Accompanying’ means walking alongside without oversimplifying, as Pope Francis invites us to do.”
Yet in the same intervention, the archbishop stated that “morality is not static; it must take shape from the situation, from the progress of knowledge, and above all from the faces and conditions of people,” a formulation that echoes controversial interpretations of Amoris Laetitia and has fueled fears of gradual doctrinal shift.
Traditionalist observers note that the approved text contains no explicit reiteration of the Church’s perennial teaching that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” (CCC 2357) or that gender ideology contradicts the created order of male and female (Genesis 1:27). The absence of such clarifications, combined with the affirmative language toward “homoaffective” relationships and “transgender persons,” marks a significant departure from the clear directives issued by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1986, which warned that “departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral.”
The Italian outcome is being closely watched internationally. Given the CEI’s proximity to the Holy See and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s role as one of Pope Francis’s closest collaborators, many fear the document will serve as a template for other episcopal conferences, particularly in Europe and Latin America.
A small editorial committee will now draft concrete implementation guidelines, to be presented at the CEI’s regular November plenary assembly.
For faithful attached to the Church’s unchanging moral doctrine, the Italian bishops’ text represents not pastoral outreach but a public contradiction of Catholic teaching on human sexuality – approved by an overwhelming majority of the Italian episcopate.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Catholic Herald
Related Images:
