Last month, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, the relator general of the unfolding Synod on Synodality, stated that proposed reforms in the life of the Church “need a stable foundation.”

But just one week later, the prelate made it clear that Catholics should steer clear of him when seeking any kind of firm doctrinal footing.

During an interview with the German Catholic news agency KNA, Cardinal Hollerich stated that Church teaching related to homosexuality “is false,” because the “sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” 

To be clear, the cardinal was responding to a rather clumsily posed question that suggested that the Church holds that homosexuality is a sin — with what exactly “homosexuality” meant in this instance left somewhat unclear. While the Church does maintain that same-sex attractions are “intrinsically disordered,” in that they do not direct the sexual faculties to their proper end, the Church is also quite clear that experiencing these attractions itself is not sinful; rather, it is the choice to act on them that constitutes a sin.

But Cardinal Hollerich didn’t clarify the question. He dove right in, using the prompt as an opportunity to suggest that the Church’s teaching related to same-sex acts — and, by extension, its teaching that human sexuality is ordered toward conjugal love between husband and wife, an image of Trinitarian life — is fundamentally flawed.

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