German Catholics Continue Responding to the Synodal Path’s LGBTQ+ Directives

In 2019, the the German Catholic Church’s national synod project convened a group of Catholics to walk the Synodal Path, and help shape Church policy and practice. Seven years later, despite continued hope for reform, some activists around the Synodal Path are experiencing frustration with a lack of actionable results for queer people.

“The Synodal Path” logo

Rainer Teuber, a leader of the #OutInChurch movement, an initiative of queer Church employees. Since 2019, he has closely followed the progress of the Synodal Path, and he feels that the synod’s open conversation about queer people in the Church is positive. “Ten or twenty years ago, that would have been unthinkable,” he says. 

Yet, the Synodal Path often falls short of what Teuber believes the church can achieve. In 2022, the German bishops’ conference rejected the synod’s  foundational text on sexual morality that departed from traditional Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Even now, Teuber finds it baffling that any recommendations on sexual morality can be made without a “shared foundational text.” That, he says, was his lowest point on the Synodal Path.

Similarly, he felt the recommendation about blessing same-gender couples did not go far enough, and nor was it made mandatory in every diocese. “I find it quite difficult to sell this departure from the goal as freedom and progress,” Teuber told Katholisch.de. 

Another activist who was closer to the Synodal Assembly, regularly deals with the same frustration. At 17, Johanna Müller was the youngest member of that meeting. Now 23, Müller remembers the  vision of the church she wrote it in her application to join the Synodal Path. She envisioned marriage for same-sex couples, ordination for women, and lay participation in the election of bishops. 

Though she still believes this is all possible, she says she “lack[s] the patience” to continue debating. Instead, she plans to focus on her studies, and step back from activism in the Church. “It’s all the more frustrating,” she says, discussing her theological studies, “to realize that theological arguments apparently aren’t the benchmark for reforms.”

But the reason Müller is allowing herself to step back is because of the dedicated people she has met who are working for reform. “I know they will continue, even if I can’t right now,” she says.

Both Müller and Teuber cope with their frustration by placing their hope and their trust in all the Catholics working tirelessly for progress . They both continue to keep their expectations high. Teuber wants progress for queer people that isn’t just symbolic. “Some at #OutInChurch want to be satisfied with these small steps,” he says. “But I’m not.” 

He finds comfort in the example of Essen Cathedral, explaining:

“Many hundreds of years ago, there was a person who had an idea for a building. He laid the first foundation stones, knowing full well that he would never see the building finished. But that didn’t stop him from laying the first stones – in the hope that future generations could build upon them.”

—Lynnzee Dick, New Ways Ministry, February 20, 2026