A Vatican synod study group’s final report includes testimony from a gay married Catholic publicly linked to a Fr. James Martin blessing that sparked global backlash.
Newsroom (07/05/2026 Gaudium Press ) The Vatican’s Synod on Synodality has published a final report from Study Group No. 9 that includes anonymous testimonies from two openly gay men in same-sex marriages — one of whom appears to be a prominent LGBTQ Catholic advocate photographed receiving a blessing from Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin just one day after the release of Fiducia Supplicans in December 2023.
The report, released by the General Secretariat of the Synod and titled “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for the Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues,” was immediately celebrated by Fr. Martin as a “major breakthrough for the Catholic Church.” Critics, however, have raised sharp questions about the document’s theological integrity, its connection to Fr. Martin, and whether the synodal process is being used to quietly reshape Catholic moral doctrine.
A Report With a “Paradigm Shift” at Its Core
Study Group No. 9 was among ten groups established by Pope Francis in February 2024 to examine issues that surfaced during the Synod’s first session held at the Vatican in October 2023. The group was originally tasked with examining “controversial” doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues — though it notably chose to rebrand such questions as “emerging” partway through its work.
The seven-member panel included Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio, Archbishop of Lima; Archbishop Filippo Iannone, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops; and Italian moral theologian Father Maurizio Chiodi, a professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. Fr. Chiodi is a controversial figure who has argued that sexual acts within a homosexual relationship can be morally good under certain circumstances, and has contended that responsible parenthood can, under Amoris Laetitia, oblige a married couple to use artificial contraception.
The 30-page report is structured in three parts. Part I calls for a “paradigm shift” in how the Church approaches its most difficult doctrinal and moral questions, framing it as part of a broader process initiated by the Second Vatican Council. Part II introduces the “principle of pastorality” as the mechanism for implementing this shift, while Part III applies the methodology to two specific cases: the experience of gay believers, and the experience of active nonviolence.
The document emphasizes that it carries no magisterial authority and does not propose definitive solutions. Instead, it offers what it describes as tools for local churches to begin processes of synodal discernment — centered on “listening to one another, paying attention to reality, and bringing together different fields of expertise.”
The Testimony Trail
At the heart of the controversy are two personal testimonies appended to the report as “listening cases.” Both are written by gay men who describe being in same-sex marriages and speak warmly of their husbands as central to their spiritual lives.
Testimony 2, attributed to a man in the United States, opens with the statement: “My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God. I have a happy, healthy marriage and am flourishing as an openly gay Catholic.”
The author recounts attending Courage, the Catholic apostolate for those with same-sex attraction, during his time as a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame, which he describes as a secretive gathering populated by “lonely, hopeless, and often depressed” people. He goes on to describe his theological transformation during a doctoral program at Fordham University — a Jesuit institution in New York City — where he says he encountered faculty and colleagues who were “overwhelmingly supportive of LGBTQ people.”
The testimony’s author is not named in the report, but his identity becomes apparent through details he provides. He describes his involvement with “America Media’s Outreach and Fortunate Families,” his work as a “public advocate for LGBTQ Catholics,” and — most significantly — the publication of his first book, LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, Past and Present.
A search of publicly available records reveals that book was authored by Jason Steidl, with a foreword written by Fr. James Martin, SJ.
Further searches confirm that Jason Steidl was the man pictured in a New York Times article published on December 21, 2023 — one day after the release of Fiducia Supplicans — in which he and his husband received a blessing from Fr. Martin. That article, titled “Marking History on a Tuesday Morning, With the Church’s Blessing,” generated significant controversy and is widely considered to have intensified the backlash from Catholic bishops around the world against Fiducia Supplicans.
Neither the Vatican nor Fr. Martin disclosed this connection when the report was published.
Martin’s Enthusiastic Endorsement
Fr. Martin, who serves as a consultor to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, was effusive in his response to the report’s publication, describing it as marking the first time “such detailed accounts from LGBTQ+ people have been included in an official Vatican report.” He noted that both men “speak movingly about their relationship with God, Jesus, and the Church,” and called it “an important step forward for the Catholic Church.”
What Fr. Martin did not acknowledge publicly was that he appears to have had a prior personal and professional relationship with the author of Testimony 2 — having written the foreword to Steidl’s book and having administered the blessing that generated international headlines just over a year before the report’s release.
The report’s endorsement of Testimony 2 has drawn particular scrutiny for its inclusion of the claim that “sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) relationship, but in the lack of faith in a God who desires our wholeness” — a formulation that stands in direct tension with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and constitute “acts of grave depravity.”
Vatican expert Diane Montagna has raised the pointed question of whether the Vatican Synod Office has effectively become “Father James Martin’s PR arm.”
A Divided Church
The report’s release has sharpened an already pronounced divide within the Catholic Church over the scope and direction of the synodal process.
Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, framed the document positively, describing it as touching “the very heart of ecclesial life” and offering “concrete tools for addressing the most difficult questions without fleeing from complexity.”
Bishop Joseph Strickland was far less measured. Taking to social media, the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, rebuked Fr. Martin directly: “This is not a step forward unless your path is into the abyss.” He characterized the Study Group’s work as “a direct attack on Catholic moral doctrine and the very words of Scripture,” insisting that “the Church cannot change what God Himself has revealed.”
The report’s publication comes in close proximity to the emergence of another significant document: a letter from Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and author of Fiducia Supplicans, sent to German bishops in November 2024. In it, Fernández stated that the Church “does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.”
Questions Without Answers
The circumstances surrounding the report’s composition and the inclusion of Testimony 2 have prompted a number of unanswered questions: Were members of Study Group No. 9 aware of the testimony author’s public identity and prior media profile? Was there coordination between members of the study group and Fr. Martin during the drafting process? And what does the decision to include — and endorse — a testimony that explicitly contradicts Catholic teaching on homosexuality say about the intentions driving the synodal process?
For defenders of traditional Catholic doctrine, the concern is not simply about one report or one testimony. It is about the cumulative direction of a process that has, in their view, progressively shifted from facilitating discernment within the bounds of established teaching to quietly laying the groundwork for doctrinal change.
For Fr. Martin and those who share his perspective, the report represents the Church at last extending to its LGBTQ members the pastoral attentiveness it owes to all the faithful.
What neither side disputes is that the publication of this report marks a new and consequential moment in an ongoing struggle over the future shape of Catholic moral theology.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Diane Montagna Substack and Infovaticana
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