VATICAN CITY — The Vatican signaled a new pastoral approach to ministering to LGBTQ+ Catholics under Pope Leo XIV, releasing a working group report that featured testimony from two gay married Catholics about their sexuality, faith and how church teachings on homosexuality had hurt them. The report summarized the work of experts studying topics that emerged after Pope Francis's reform effort and carries no binding value, serving as a synthesis of deliberations.

The testimony was published as annexes on the Vatican's synod website. One testifier, a man from Portugal, recounted struggling with his faith due to insensitive remarks by a Catholic spiritual director and forced conversion therapy. The other, an American, criticized the therapy he underwent and counseling received from a Catholic pastoral group. "My sexuality isn't a perversion, disorder, or cross; it's a gift from God," the American testifier wrote.

During an airborne news conference, Pope Leo XIV said church teachings on social justice, equality and freedom were more important than teachings on sexual morality. He said he would go no further than Pope Francis on same-sex blessings. The Vatican renewed its opposition to local efforts to deviate from the Holy See's stance on same-sex blessings. In Germany, Catholic bishops have issued guidelines for priests on performing same-sex blessings that go beyond the Vatican's 2023 decree. Pope Francis's 12-year pontificate included a more welcoming pastoral approach to LGBTQ+ Catholics.

Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who has spearheaded outreach to the LGBTQ+ community in the United States, described the publication as a step forward. "Publication marked the first time that an official Vatican report has included such detailed stories from LGBTQ Catholics. As such, it marks a significant step forward in the church's relationship with the LGBTQ community," Martin said. In a written commentary, he added: "If the Catholic Church has begun to listen to LGBTQ Catholics as part of its methodology, the church has already moved forward in a significant way."

Bishop Joseph Strickland objected to the framing in the document. "To suggest that the sin does not consist in the same-sex relationship itself is not merely confusing language. It is a direct assault upon Catholic moral doctrine and upon the words of Scripture itself," Strickland wrote.