Is the Catholic Church about to make a dramatic U-turn on gay marriage?

Bishops attend a morning session of a two-week synod on family issues at the Vatican

The Vatican has said that homosexuals have ‘gifts and qualities to offer’ and asked if Catholicism could accept gays in what appears to be a dramatic shift in tone.

Roman Catholic gay rights groups around the world hailed the document, published today, as a breakthrough, but Church conservatives called it a betrayal of traditional family values.


It was prepared after a week of discussions at an assembly of 200 bishops.

The paper, called ‘Relatio’, suggests the Church should challenge itself to find ‘a fraternal space’ for homosexuals without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony.

Part of it reads: ‘Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home.

‘Are our communities capable of proving that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?’

London-based Catholic gay rights group QUEST called parts of it ‘a breakthrough in that they acknowledge that such unions have an intrinsic goodness and constitute a valuable contribution to wider society and the common good’.

But John Smeaton, co-founder of the conservative group Voice of the Family, said: ‘Those who are controlling the synod have betrayed Catholic parents worldwide.’

He branded it ‘one of the worst official documents drafted in Church history’.