Will There Be LGBTQ+ Progress at the Synod? Possibly Yes. And Possibly No.

Today, the Synod General Assembly’s synthesis report will be released. But will the Synod on Synodality really bring significant change for LGBTQ Catholics?

Robert Shine, associate director of New Ways Ministry, takes up this question in a new commentary for Outreach, a project of America Media. Shine begins:

“It is a worthwhile question after how much we and our allies have invested in the synodal process. We have participated in listening sessions across the world, studied the reports, offered our feedback, and tracked developments. Some of us reengaged in an institution that harmed us or someone we love. All of this was done in the hope change in the Catholic Church is possible through this synodal journey.

“Now, to the question of whether there will be significant progress, the best answer I can offer now, as we enter the final week of the first of two General Assemblies for this Synod, is a most Catholic answer: both possibly yes and possibly no.”

Shine reviews how previous Synods under Pope Francis, on the family and on youth, treated—or did not treat–LGBTQ+ issues, both in their reports and the post-Synod exhortations released by the pope. Before each of the previous Synods, as with the present one, hopes were high that the church would finally take up gender and sexuality topics in a real way. The moments were ripe. Yet, each time, the results were marginal. Shine notes, too:

“At both the Synod on the Family and the Synod on Youth, a notable omission was any discussion about transgender and nonbinary people. The discussions were stuck in a lesbian/gay framework that also erases bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and other identities. Any conversation today needs to not only use the term ‘LGBTQ,’ but address the diverse gender and sexual identities the term entails. This need is particularly true for transgender and nonbinary people given the harm they face both in society, where discrimination is rampant, and the church, where pastorally-damaging language and policies still exist.”

As to whether the Synod on Synodality will result in significant change, Shine answers both “possibly yes and possibly no,” in part because the confidentiality imposed on Synod assembly participants makes it hard for the people of God to follow the discussions. They are “simply left to venture guesses.”

For his “no” answer, Shine explains:

“[At previous Synods] some positive signs emerged both from within the Synod hall and from participants’ comments externally. Ultimately, though, while some progress was made, LGBTQ+ Catholics and allies’ expectations were not met, or at best, were met in underwhelming terms.

“If this Synod ends in a similarly general and vague way, I would find it difficult to argue significant progress had been made. For example, as my colleague Francis DeBernardo has suggested, it will be disappointing and meaningless if all that comes from the assembly is a general statement that ‘all homophobia must be rejected.'”

For his more confident “yes” answer, Shine argues:

“The hopeful ‘yes’ to my question about significant change begins with the simple fact that the conversation is happening. At last, after decades of Catholics advocating for an open dialogue on issues of gender and sexuality, that dialogue has arrived, albeit in nascent form.

“The Synod on Synodality was never going to fully fix the church’s approach to gender and sexuality, given how broken it is. Nor was it ever possible that it would make much-needed developments in doctrine. As Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin said recently about synods, ‘You discern. I discern. He [Pope Francis] decides.’ The Synod is for discernment, and the path to full inclusion and justice for LGBTQ+ Catholics is long. But, as I have argued elsewhere, given every person is impacted by their gender and sexual identities, any hope of a synodal church necessitates addressing these issues in healthy, open ways.”

Shine cautions that any predictions are tough, if not impossible because the Synod on Synodality continues for another year, with its final General Assembly in October 2024. For now, he concludes:

“The most that we can realistically hope for is if the Synod assembly makes a clear, articulated statement in its synthesis report that the institutional church is now a committed dialogue partner with LGBTQ+ people going forward. Welcoming statements and personal gestures by church leaders and pastoral ministers are increasingly insufficient when structural change is what the people of God so fervently desire. The synthesis report needs to affirm and encourage this desire in positive terms.

“If the dialogue and discernment now begun in the Synod assembly can be sustained with boldness, honesty, and love over the coming year and beyond, expanding beyond the Vatican to the global church, that will indeed be significant progress for LGBTQ+ Catholics worth celebrating.”

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, October 28, 2023