LGBT apostolate Courage objects to ‘calumny’ in Synod document

In a testimony published alongside a study group report, an individual said Courage meetings ‘did little to help my spiritual and psychosexual development’.

A Catholic apostolate encouraging chastity among LGBT+ Catholics accused the Secretariat of the Synod of publishing a “calumny and detraction” against its work.

The final report from Study Group Nine described an individual’s “problematic membership” of the group Courage and published his testimony as an annex.

Study Group Nine, one of several established to consider topics raised at the first Rome session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2023, covered “Theological criteria and synodal discernment methodologies for shared discernment of emerging doctrinal, pastoral and ethical issues”.

Its final report published on 5 May proposed “a process of continuous theorisation and implementation” for Church responses to “emerging issues”, and considered “the lived experience of believers with same-sex attraction” as a case study.

According to the report, one of the two testimonies reflected how membership of a Courage group, “by pushing for ‘reparative therapy’, had the effect of separating faith and sexuality”.

In the testimony published alongside the report, the individual said he had joined a Courage group “at the suggestion of a conversion therapist I met to deal with my ‘condition’” but its meetings “did little to help my spiritual and psychosexual development”.

“The gathering was secretive and hidden. The people I met were lonely, hopeless and often depressed,” he said.

Courage International said the testimony “mischaracterises Courage’s work” and denied any part in “reparative therapy”.

“Courage members understand those meetings to be confidential and secure – precisely so that they can speak candidly and vulnerably without fear of someone reporting about them,” it said in a statement.

“But it’s precisely because people often are lonely, hopeless and depressed that we bring them together for support and insist on the confidentiality that enables them to speak freely about their struggles.”

The statement continued: “Courage has suffered calumny and detraction before, but usually from secular outlets. It is a great sadness and an additional wound to our members to have this false and unjust depiction in a Vatican document.”

Courage International, founded in New York in 1980, is now headquartered in Connecticut and has a presence in 15 countries. Pope Leo received members of its leadership in a private audience on 6 February.

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