In 2021, Pope Francis convened the Synod of Bishops, which was described as the largest consultative gathering in history. It invited Catholics from around the world to meet to discuss issues relating to the church, first at the parish level, then at the diocesan level, then at the level of bishops’ conferences and finally at the “continental level.” Notably, in roughly half of the bishops’ conference reports, the question of ministering to LGBTQ people was mentioned.
During two in-person sessions at the Vatican, 350 synod delegates from around the world met to consider what was said by the People of God. And, for the first time, lay men and women, men and women in religious orders and priests (that is, “non-bishops”) participated with full voting rights.
In the first session of the Synod, in October 2023, LGBTQ issues were discussed openly and sometimes heatedly. The next year, Pope Francis decided to move the discussion of LGBTQ issues, along with other issues (among them, women’s leadership roles in the church, digital ministry, the selection of bishops)” to ten “study groups.” Pope Francis’s goal was to enable the synod to focus more on “synodality,” that is, how to make the church more participatory. Study Group 9 was asked to reflect on “controversial” theological issues.
On May 5, 2026, Study Group 9 issued its report, which caught many by surprise. To begin with, it renamed the issues covered, which included LGBTQ people, as “emerging” rather than “controversial.” Moreover, not only did it call for a shift in methodology in how the church reflects on “emerging issues” (essentially asking for more listening), it published the testimony of two married gay men, probably a first in an official Vatican report.
Outreach asked some of the world’s leading Catholic theologians and scholars to reflect on the import of the work of Study Group 9: what it means for the church and for LGBTQ Catholics. We hope this series helps you as well to reflect on this group’s important work.
Elizabeth A. Johnson on Study Group 9: God gave them the same gift
In tune with the season of spring bursting with new life, the Vatican recently released a document entitled “Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of emerging doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues.” It reports the recommendations of Study Group 9, which was charged with considering tense issues that emerged during the Synod of Bishops several years prior. Every word of the title vibrates with meaning, for the report advocates settling issues by listening, dialoguing and discerning together as baptized persons led by the Spirit, rather than by an older model of applying abstract moral principles to actual human lives.
The experience of the LGBTQ Catholic community offers a case in point. In keeping with its pastoral call to listen and dialogue, the document cites the stories of two gay men who describe their experiences of suffering and hope. As James Martin, SJ, has rightly pointed out, including these stories marks a significant step forward in the church’s relationship with the LGBTQ community. It is disappointing that women’s experiences are not also cited, an omission that reinforces the traditional pattern of silencing women’s voices in the church. But still, a step is a step. A further step comes as the report lays out ongoing ways to deal with the impasse between good pastoral practice and current doctrine that defines homosexuality as an “objective disorder” (which, it must be said, is not infallible and is therefore subject to development: remember geocentric theory; remember slavery).
Lucas Sharma, SJ, on Study Group 9: Listening and the church
When Pope Francis convened the Synod on Synodality, he made clear that his vision for this major church event was to be parrhesia – deep and courageous truth-telling to the experiences of people from the centers and peripheries of the church and the globe. Francis’ vision, continued in Pope Leo XIV’s papacy over this past year, has been rooted in the firm conviction that knowing the real experiences of people – in the circumstances in which they find themselves – are the best place to begin discerning the Spirit anew in our church – rather than in abstract principles or theories.
The Synod Group Number 9 took this call seriously in this recently released “Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues” document. The goal is deep and courageous listening. The document repeatedly calls the church to listen closely to the experiences of people’s reality as it is lived on emerging issues that stretch the church from the center to the “existential, social, and cultural ‘peripheries.’” The working group then models exactly what it calls for by listening directly to the experiences of two gay men – one from Portugal and from the United States.
Kevin Glauber Ahern on Study Group 9’s paradigm shift in theology
Before the birth of our first child, my wife and I — like many new parents — read books about parenthood. We learned about sleep patterns and mapped out our baby’s “wonder weeks.” By the time our son was born, we thought we had a solid grasp on what parenthood was about. But it did not take long to realize that the lived experience of parenthood was far greater (and messier!) than the ideal models we had read about.
As a lay Catholic theologian, parenthood has taught me a lot about what it means to do theology, what Saint Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) famously defined as “faith seeking understanding.” Like parenthood, theology, I have discovered, is far greater (and messier) than the ideal models one finds in books, art, and the sanitized depictions of saints.
Antonio Autiero on Study Group 9: Allowing ourselves to be challenged
With the report submitted to the General Secretariat of the Synod, Study Group No. 9 has offered for shared reflection a text that is significant for its theoretical framework and for the particular sensitivity with which it addresses the moral issues of our time.
I would first like to emphasize that the working group did not primarily seek to construct a handbook of answers to ethical questions based on established principles rooted in the Church’s doctrinal tradition. Rather, it recognized the urgency of outlining a method for approaching moral issues. The report makes it clear at first glance that the configuration of a method for moral reflection is not neutral or indifferent with regard to the perspectives and content that derive from it. From this arises a style of thinking, in the sense of a demanding and rigorous ethos that breaks with the traditional tendency to view doctrine as something abstract and immutable, something that finds its own justification and, through deductive application, expresses its ability to influence life, determining evaluations and judgments.