It is not just, let alone merciful, to have any person, be it lay or priest, to spin the wording of any part of the final report of the last ordinary Synod of Bishops. For instance, I have read and heard confusing words on what the Synod said about homosexuality.

On this point par.76 of this report has clear wording:

“The Church conforms its orientation to the Lord Jesus which in a love without limits offered himself for every person without exceptions. In the face of families who live the experience of having within themselves persons with homosexual tendencies, the Church emphasises that every person, independently from their sexual tendency, should be respected in his dignity and met with respect, taking care to avoid every mark of unjust discrimination. Specific attention is reserved also to the accompanying of families in which live persons with homosexual tendencies.

“With regard to the plans of some to equate unions between homosexual persons with marriage, there does not exist any foundation to assimilate or establish analogies, not even remote, between homosexual unions and the design of God for marriage and the family.

“The Synod judges it, in all cases, entirely unacceptable that local churches suffer pressure on this subject and that international organisms condition their financial aid to poor countries by the introduction of laws which institute ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.”Truth is at the service of mercy.