Vatican official apologizes for taking down LGBTQ resource
ROME -- A Vatican official apologized to a leading Catholic LGBTQ advocacy group for having yanked a reference to it on the Vatican website, drawing immediate praise Monday from the group as an “historic" move to repair the painful rift between the Catholic hierarchy and the gay community.
The Vatican’s General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, which is organizing a two-year consultation of rank-and-file Catholics ahead of a 2023 meeting of bishops at the Vatican, restored the reference to New Ways Ministry on the website over the weekend.
The Synod had originally included a reference to a webinar video made by New Ways Ministry, a U.S.-based organization that advocates for greater acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church, in its “Resources” page directing people to sources of information about the Synod. The video urged LGBTQ Catholics to participate in the consultation process, which aims to make the Catholic Church more welcoming, responsive to the laity and less centralized.
But the New Ways Ministry reference was taken down earlier this month without explanation. Suspicion fell on the U.S. bishops conference, which is headed by conservatives who have long kept New Ways Ministry at arms’ length. Catholic doctrine holds that gays must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual activity is “intrinsically disordered.”
Reversing course, the Synod’s communications director, Thierry Bonaventura, restored the online reference and said he wanted to apologize “to all LGBT and to the members of New Ways Ministries for the pain caused” by taking down the video. He urged them to contribute their reflections on the consultation process.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/vatican-official-apologizes-taking-lgbtq-resource-81719622