Catholic Church and homosexuality
The relationship between the Catholic Church and homosexuality is complex and often contentious, involving various conflicting views between the Catholic Church and some in the LGBTQ community. According to Catholic doctrine, solely having same-sex attractions itself is not considered inherently sinful; it is the act of engaging in sexual activity with someone of the same sex that is regarded as a grave sin against chastity. The Church also does not recognize nor perform any sacramental marriages between same-sex couples. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes that all homosexual individuals must "be accepted and treated with respect, compassion, and sensitivity," and that all forms of unjust discrimination should be discouraged and avoided at all cost.
The Church's teachings on this issue have developed over time, influenced by papal interventions and theologians, including the early Church Fathers. Pastoral care for LGBTQ Catholics is provided through a variety of official and unofficial channels, varying from diocese to diocese. In recent years, senior clergy and popes have called for the Church to increase its support for LGBTQ individuals.
Globally, the Catholic Church is politically active on LGBTQ rights issues, and its relationship with the LGBTQ community has been particularly strained during critical moments, such as the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Some notable LGBT Catholics, including priests and bishops, have been openly gay or bisexual. Catholic dissenters have argued that legally consensual relations between people of the same-sex is as inherently spiritual and valuable as the same for those of the opposite-sex.
On the other hand, some Catholic organizations and institutions that uphold church teachings on sexual activities campaigned against LGBTQ rights worldwide, advocating for the promotion and encouragement of chastity and celibacy among LGBT Catholics. Pope Francis took a notably different approach to these subjects than that of his predecessors. He became the first pope to support granting civil union status for same-sex individuals as a legal protection for same-sex domestic partners. He also publicly denounced sodomy laws.
Church teaching
The Catholic Church teaches that, as a person does not choose to be either homosexual or heterosexual, subjectively experiencing attraction for person of one's own sex is not inherently sinful. According to the Catholic theology of sexuality, all sexual acts must be open to procreation by nature and express the symbolism of male-female complementarity. Sexual acts between two members of the same sex cannot meet these standards. Homosexuality thus constitutes a tendency towards this sin. The church teaches that gay persons are called to practice chastity.The church also teaches that gay people "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity", and that "every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." while holding that discrimination in marriage, employment, housing, and adoption in some circumstances can be just and "obligatory."
According to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "homosexual acts" are "grave sins against chastity" and "expressions of the vice of lust." Homosexual acts are included among the grave sins against chastity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, along with masturbation, fornication, and pornography.
According to the Catechism, "homosexual acts" are "acts of grave depravity" that are "intrinsically disordered." It continues, "They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." Regarding homosexuality as an orientation, the Catechism describes it as "objectively disordered."
The church points to several passages in the Bible as the basis for its teachings, including Genesis 19:1–11, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, I Corinthians 6:9, Romans 1:18–32, and I Timothy 1:10. In December 2019, the Pontifical Biblical Commission published a book that included an exegesis on these and other passages.
Research conducted in the fields of social sciences and study of religion indicates that the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality are "a major source of conflict and distress" to LGBT Catholics.
Same-sex marriage
The church opposes same-sex marriage and [|is active in political campaigns against it]. It also opposes same-sex civil unions and does not bless them, although some priests and bishops have offered blessings for same-sex couples or spoken in favor of priests being able to bless them. Nevertheless, Pope Francis expressed support for civil-unions to protect gay couples in the documentary Francesco, and in a press conference in September 2021. In that press conference, he said: "If a homosexual couple wants to lead a life together, the State has the possibility to give them safety, stability, inheritance; and not only to homosexuals but to all the people who want to live together. But marriage is a sacrament, between a man and a woman".In March 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that the church cannot bless same-sex relationships because "God cannot bless sin". On 18 December 2023, it published Fiducia supplicans, a declaration allowing Catholic priests to bless people who are not considered to be married by the Church, including same-sex couples.
Blessings for same-sex couples
In March 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that the Church can not bless same-sex relationships because "God cannot bless sin". On 25 September 2023, in a responsum to conservative cardinals before the 16th World Synod of Bishops, Francis signalled the Church's openness to blessings for gay couples as long as they did not misrepresent the Catholic view of marriage as between one man and one woman.On 18 December 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published Fiducia supplicans, a declaration allowing Catholic priests to bless people who are not considered to be married by the Church, including people in same-sex relationships. These were to be "short and simple pastoral blessings of couples in irregular situations ". The declaration does not permit the blessing of the same-sex relationships, only the people within it.
While the declaration was welcomed by many Catholics, it also sparked considerable controversy and criticism, with several bishops' conferences barring the blessings in their jurisdictions or asking priests to refrain from them.
In January 2024, the Roman-Catholic bishop conference in France allowed blessing ceremonies for same-sex partnerships.In January 2024, the Italian bishop conference supported blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.
In January 2024, Roman-Catholic bishop conference in Portugal supported blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.
In April 2025, Roman Catholic Bishop Conference in Germany published a guidelinehelp document of blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.
History
The Christian tradition has generally prohibited all sexual activities outside of married sexual intercourse. This prohibition includes activities engaged in by couples or individuals of either the same or different sexes. The Catholic Church's position specifically on homosexuality developed from the teachings of the Church Fathers, which was in stark contrast to Greek and Roman attitudes towards same-sex relations, including pederasty.Canon law regarding same-sex sexual activity has been shaped through the decrees issued by a series of ecclesiastical councils. Initially, canons against sodomy were aimed at ensuring clerical or monastic discipline, and were only widened in the medieval period to include laymen. In the Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas maintained that homosexual practice was contrary to natural law, arguing that the primary natural end of the sexual act was procreation, and since said procreation is carried out from a process of sexual fertilization between a man and a woman, homosexuality is contrary to the very end of said act. He also stated that "the unnatural vice" is the greatest of the sins of lust. Throughout the Middle Ages, the church repeatedly condemned homosexuality, and often collaborated with civic authorities to punish people engaging in same-sex relations. Punishment of sexual "vice" as well as religious heresy was seen as strengthening the church's moral authority.
The modern church
In the late 20th century, the Church has responded to gay rights movements by reiterating its condemnation of homosexuality while acknowledging the existence of gay people. In January 1976, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope Paul VI published Persona Humana, which codified the teaching against all extra-marital sex, including gay sex. The document stated that acceptance of homosexual activity runs counter to the church's teaching and morality. It drew a distinction between people who were homosexual because of "a false education," "a bad example" or other causes it described as "not incurable," and a "pathological" condition which was "incurable." However, it criticized those who argued that innate homosexuality justified same-sex sexual activity within loving relationships, and stated that the Bible condemned homosexual activity as depraved, "intrinsically disordered," never to be approved, and a consequence of rejecting God.Earlier, the controversially liberal 1966 Dutch Catechism, which was the first post-Vatican II Catholic catechism and which had been commissioned by the Dutch bishops, had stated that "The very sharp strictures of Scripture on homosexual practices must be read in their context" as condemning a trend for homosexuality among non-gay people, implying that people who were gay were not condemned for homosexual activity.
In October 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a letter addressed to all the bishops of the Catholic Church entitled On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. This was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as prefect. The letter gave instructions on how the clergy should deal with, and respond to, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Designed to remove any ambiguity about permissible tolerance of homosexual orientation resulting from the earlier Persona Humana—and prompted by the growing influence of gay-accepting groups and clergy—the letter was particularly aimed at the church in the United States. It affirmed the position that while homosexual orientation is not in itself a sin, it is nevertheless a tendency towards the "moral evil" of homosexual activity, and therefore must be considered "an objective disorder", which moreover is "essentially self-indulgent" since homosexual sexual acts are not procreative and therefore not genuinely loving or selfless.
The letter also said that accepting homosexual acts as morally equivalent to married heterosexual acts was harmful to the family and society and warned bishops to be on guard against, and not to support, Catholic organizations not upholding the Church's doctrine on homosexuality—groups which the letter said were not really Catholic. This alluded to LGBT and LGBT-accepting Catholic groups such as DignityUSA and New Ways Ministry, and ultimately resulted in the exclusion of Dignity from Church property. The letter condemned physical and verbal violence against gay people but reiterated that this did not change its opposition to homosexuality or gay rights. Its claims that accepting and legalizing homosexual behaviour leads to violence were seen as controversially blaming gay people for homophobic violence and encouraging homophobic violence. Referring to the AIDS epidemic, the letter, McNeill writes, blamed AIDS on gay rights activists and gay-accepting mental health professionals: "Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved".
In a statement released in July 1992, "Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons," the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reiterated its position from "On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," and further stated that discrimination against gay people in certain areas, such as selecting adoptive or foster parents or in hiring teachers, coaches, or military service members, is not unjust, and thus can be permitted in some circumstances.
On 31 October 2023, a document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, responding to questions from José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, said that transgender people could be baptised, be godparents at a baptism, and be witnesses at weddings, so long as such situations would not cause scandal. Moreover, the responses stated that under the prudence of the priest, a cohabiting "homoaffective" Catholic can be a godparent, being understood that where that person is not merely "cohabiting" but notoriously doing so "more uxorio", the situation would be "different". The responses were signed by both Pope Francis and Cardinal Fernández of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Vatican stated that the document "simply clarified church teaching and did not constitute new policy or a change in policy."
In 2025, a “Pilgrimage of the Tenda di Gionata Association and other associations” was included in the Vatican’s Jubilee program, these associations actually being LGBTQ associations. It was the first time that such an LGBTQ-themed pilgrimage was included in the program. Its pilgrims came from Brazil, Italy, and the U.S.