The Synod of Bishops left the Church’s stand on gay relationships unchanged. Kurt Sansone asks whether the Church will ever have a Galileo moment.

It took 350 years for the Church to withdraw its condemnation of Galileo for his discovery that the Earth moved around the Sun.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised to the Italian astronomer and physicist for the 1633 condemnation.

For hundreds of years the Galileo incident epitomised the conflict between reason and faith; science and religion.

The Church eventually admitted it was wrong about Galileo’s findings but could this also be true of its stand on gay relationships?

The synod that ended last week gave no sign this will be happening anytime soon but Mario Gerada, a gay Christian, shuns the black and white characterisation of right and wrong that the Galileo question poses.

He believes the hierarchy of the Catholic Church does not intentionally want to harm the LGBTI community, although, he insists, the official teachings as they stand today cause pain.

And the pain is palpable, according to Polish priest Krzysztof Charamsa, who was sacked by the Vatican last month after coming out as gay and admitting to being in a relationship.

In his resignation letter to Pope Francis he thanked him for some of his words and gestures towards gay people. However, he criticised the Catholic Church for being “frequently violently homophobic” and “insensitive, unfair and brutal” towards gays.

Reconciling Church doctrine with the aspirations of gay Catholics is not easy, but Mr Gerada points towards a theological debate that challenges the belief etched in official teachings that homosexual acts are a perversion.

He hopes the hierarchy listens more to scientific evidence about the “origins” of LGBTI people and the evidence be part of the theological discussion.

“It is about creating spaces that go beyond hurts, and help the hierarchy of the Church to gain a deeper understanding, to take a look at the reality of the lives of LGBTI persons, especially those who are persecuted in their own countries… a violence sometimes justified through sacred texts,” he says.

The catechism of the Catholic Church still describes homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered”, something Catholic theologians like James Alison have challenged.

In a speech delivered in Rome last year Dr Alison said the Church’s description had turned gay people into “second-class citizens in God’s house”, drawing parallels between the uncircumcised gentiles Peter had baptised and who were frowned upon by the traditionalists in the early church.

Dr Alison may represent a minority in theological thought but Mr Gerada considers it an important step to create “safe spaces” for further dialogue in the Church.

Pope Francis’s efforts have to be acknowledged but he has not touched the teachings as they stand

“I feel that we need to revisit sexuality within the Roman Catholic Church in general and that includes a debate on relationships which do not fit into a man-woman marriage,” Mr Gerada says.

The scientific and cultural developments that have taken place over the past few decades must not be ignored, he adds, hoping the Pope will open up a space for an anthropological-theological discussion.

Pope Francis has made efforts to moderate the Church’s discourse on gay relationships and emphasised the obligation of pastoral care for LGBTI people. But Mr Gerada is under no illusion as to what the Church’s official teachings are today.

“Pope Francis’s efforts have to be acknowledged but he has not touched the teachings as they stand, and he might not be able to do so yet. But we need to carry on with our work, both at the pastoral level but also at the anthropological-theological level to invite the Church to take a fresh look at human sexuality, and keep inviting the hierarchy to engage within this conversation,” Mr Gerada says.

The synod of bishops did not recommend drastic change to current teachings. On the contrary, it insisted gay relationships could in no way be put anywhere on the same level as married heterosexual couples. Gay marriage never featured in any of the public utterings various bishops made, although there was a push for a more welcoming Church by some.

Fr Joe Borg, a columnist, says the synod was never likely to deliver the Galileo moment if this meant a position in favour of gay marriage.

“The Church teaches that full sexual relations should be expressed only in marriage, which it describes as a union between a man and a woman and Pope Francis has gone out of his way to emphasise this, describing gay marriage as an anthropological regression,” he says.

But refusing same-sex marriage does not imply that the dedication and love found in several same-sex relationships should be shunned or considered to be of no value, he adds.“There are many such relationships, that are both humanly rewarding and that enrich the community to which they belong,” he says.

Fr Borg acknowledges the simmering debate within the Church on the issue of gay relationships.

But the divisions are cultural as well as theological. Several bishops from the West have said the Church should modify its approach and language on homosexuals, Fr Borg says.

“On the other hand, bishops from Africa were not so forthcoming. Bishop Johan Bonny said he had been prevented from raising the issue of the pastoral care of gay Catholics in the gathering’s group discussions because of theopposition of the powerful Ghanaian cardinal, Robert Sarah, Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship.”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge, of Brisbane, Australia, took a different view, Fr Borg notes, proposing a new language and positive attitude.

“I don’t think we can any longer say we condemn the sin but not the sinner,” Archbishop Coleridge told Australia’s National Catholic Reporter in an interview.

The archbishop also went a step further, positing the cultural differences in the arguments being put forward.

“A person will say in the cultures that you and I come from that my sexuality isn’t just part of me, it’s part of my whole being… Therefore, you can’t isolate my sexuality by identifying it with this act that you call intrinsically disordered that is somehow distinct from or separate from me, the sinner,” Mgr Coleridge said.

There is a vast middle ground, a

territory between the extremes of dumping Catholic teaching and adopting a no-change approach, that has to be explored, Archbishop Coleridge said.

It will be a long time before a gay couple can tie the knot in the Church, if ever, but Mr Gerada believes it is time to explore the “sacramentality”, which he defines as the presence of the love of God, in all relationship forms.

“I do hope that we get to the day, where all human love is blessed,” he says.

Getting there is another matter altogether.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com