A Double Standard on Same-Sex Ministry
Courage International keeps getting the cold shoulder — and the pattern is impossible to ignore
There’s pattern in parts of the Church that has become an elephant in the room for me: Immense pastoral patience for Catholics publicly living in same-sex relationships, but visible suspicion toward apostolates like Courage International that actually encourage chastity and fidelity to Catholic teaching.
That’s a double standard, and a bad message to the faithful.
The latest example came this week, when Courage publicly rebuked a Vatican synodal study document for what it called a “false and unjust depiction” of the apostolate. The report included testimony from a man in a same-sex civil “marriage” who described Courage meetings as “secretive and hidden” and populated by people who were “lonely, hopeless, and often depressed.” Courage responded that confidentiality exists precisely so members can speak honestly and safely about deeply personal struggles.
What stands out isn’t just the criticism itself, but the asymmetry.
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For some time there’s been a visible eagerness in some ecclesial circles to emphasize accompaniment, affirmation, and dialogue with Catholics in openly irregular situations. Yet ministries that encourage chastity — not condemnation, not cruelty, but chastity — are often treated with suspicion, as though fidelity itself is somehow psychologically suspect and practically ridiculous.
After the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Courage’s then-director Father Paul Check said there was “a voice that was not heard at that synod” — Catholics who experience same-sex attraction and are trying to live within Church teaching. They organized their own conference in Rome just to get that perspective into the room.
When Outreach — a ministry that does not hold to the Church’s full teaching on homosexuality — held its conference at Georgetown, Pope Francis sent a warm letter of support and Cardinal Wilton Gregory presided at Mass. Courage held its own conference that same July. No papal letter. The local ordinary sent his regrets.
Father James Martin was made a voting member of the Synod on Synodality. No one from Courage was. Sister Jeannine Gramick of New Ways Ministry — which openly dissents from Church teaching on homosexuality — received private letters of papal support. Courage did not
Now a Vatican working group has taken one man’s negative personal experience and embedded it in an official document as a characterization of the entire apostolate — without a phone call, without fact-checking, without basic fairness.
This didn’t come out of nowhere. The pattern goes back years. We roll out the red carpet for so-called gay-friendly clerics and apostolate, while giving the shoulder to those who uphold Church teaching, and accompany same-sex attracted people to help them do the same.
Courage continues to receive support from many bishops and recently met personally with Pope Leo XIV, who reportedly encouraged the apostolate’s emphasis on chastity and holiness.
The deeper issue here is spiritual and pastoral.
The Church rightly teaches that every person possesses dignity and must be treated with compassion. But accompaniment can’t mean treating chastity as unrealistic, damaging, or oppressive. For Catholics experiencing same-sex attraction, chastity is not hatred. It is the same universal call to holiness placed upon every Christian according to his state in life.
And ministries helping people carry that cross faithfully should not be treated like an embarrassment within the Church.