A spokesperson for the General Secretariat of the Synod, which is composed of the Ordinary Council of bishops, has distanced the entity from a recently released controversial final report on same-sex attraction by a Synod on Synodality study group, Rome-based Catholic journalist Diane Montagna reported May 14.
The spokesperson, who was not named, told Religion Confidencial that “the working groups have, as expected, worked autonomously” so “these reports cannot be attributed to the Synod Secretariat,” according to Montagna.
The spokesperson said the reports are only “working documents.”
“The Secretariat’s logo does not even appear, only that of the synodal process,” the spokesperson said, according to Montagna.
As Zeale News previously reported, the study group that published the controversial report was one of 10 established by the late Pope Francis in 2024 to consider issues set aside from the main Synod’s assemblies. The group’s report “includes testimony from two men in so-called same-sex marriages,” Zeale News explained. One of the testimonies criticized Courage International, a Catholic apostolate that ministers to those with same-sex attraction and supports them in living chastely according to the teachings of the faith.
Montagna noted that in a May 14 article by Página Católica, the news outlet reports that , the author of Testimony 1, a Portuguese layman, “is revealed to be closely linked to the Jesuit priest” Father James Martin.
She described Father Martin as “a key figure behind the inclusion” of the testimonies. The author of Testimony 2 was identified last week as Jason Steidl Jack, who, along with his “husband,” is depicted being blessed by Father Martin in a featured photo of a 2023 New York Times publication, Montagna explained.
“The revelations even further erode the credibility of the Synod on Synodality, long presented by the Vatican as an exercise in listening to the whole Church with broad ecclesial representation,” she wrote.
The man writes at the beginning of Testimony 2, “My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God. I have a happy, healthy marriage and am flourishing as an openly gay Catholic. It’s taken years of prayer, therapy, and affirming community to get here, but I thank God for my sexuality and station in life. If I could choose to be gay, I would, because it’s a powerful and beautiful way of reflecting God’s image in the world.”
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The Página Católica report, which was originally published in Spanish, was reposted in Montagna’s article in English and is titled “Fr. James Martin’s ‘Plot’: The Mastermind Behind the Synod’s Two Testimonies on Homosexuality.”
“Both letters sent to the Synod were written by two friends of Father James Martin who are connected to the Jesuit order — one as a professor at Fordham University in the USA (in whose theology faculty 33% of the members are ‘LGBT’ — Jason Steidl dixit), and the other as a leader in an Ignatian community in Lisbon,” the report states. “Is it really so far-fetched to suppose that these cases were chosen because they were fundamental in arriving at the result that was desired?
“Because just as, at one time, the responses of bishops from all over the world were manipulated in Rome in order to revoke the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, it is reasonable to conclude that the testimonies published by the Synod appear to have been selected both because of their provenance (from the amici [friends]) and because of their content. The worst of politics is now being practiced in the Vatican.”