In an unexpected turn of events, a Vatican report released earlier this month said homosexuals have “gifts and qualities” to offer Christians. The report also pondered over whether Catholicism can actually  welcome homosexual individuals and acknowledge the positive influence of gay couples. Roman Catholic gay rights advocates from across the world said the report, released on October 13, was a breakthrough, though conservatives labeled it as a betrayal of traditional family values.

The report, which was compiled after approximately 200 bishops from the Vatican attended a weeklong Synod on the family, said the Roman Catholic Church should try to offer a fraternal space to homosexuals without necessarily compromising on Catholic doctrine on family values and matrimony. Even though the report did not point towards any change in the Church’s usual condemnation of homosexual relations and gay marriage, it definitely used more compassionate and less judgmental language than it has in Vatican statements delivered before Pope Francis was elected in 2013.

“Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home,” said the document, known by its Latin name “relatio.”

New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay rights group in the United States, called the report a “major step forward” and praised it for being free of the “major gloom and doom and apocalyptic horror” that has otherwise been part of statements made by the Vatican about homosexuals in the past.

However, John Smeaton, co- founder of Voice of the Family, a conservative Christian group, called it one of the worst official documents created in the history of the Church.

“Those who are controlling the synod have betrayed Catholic parents worldwide,” he said.

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