Pope Francis has suffered a setback as proposals for wider acceptance of gay people failed to win a two-thirds majority at a Catholic Church synod.
A draft issued half-way through the meeting of senior clerics had called for greater openness towards homosexuals, and divorced and remarried Catholics.
But those paragraphs were not approved, and stripped from the final report.
All other parts of the draft report were accepted by the Synod.
The Pope said the full draft document, including the rejected paragraphs, should nonetheless be published.
Correspondents say the text welcoming gay people and remarried Catholics had been watered down in the final version that was voted on – but it appears that they still met with resistance from conservatives.
Speaking after the vote, Pope Francis told attendees he would have been “worried and saddened” if there had not been “animated discussions” or if “everyone had been in agreement or silent in a false and acquiescent peace”, AP news agency reported.
The New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights group, said it was “very disappointing that the synod’s final report did not retain the gracious welcome to lesbian and gay people that the draft of the report included”.
The report was issued at the conclusion of a two-week meeting at the Vatican, attended by about 200 bishops.
The earlier draft had said that homosexuals had “gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community”.
Progressive bishops and gay rights groups had welcomed the draft, but conservative groups called it a “betrayal”.
The published report will serve as a reference point for Catholics, with the issues to be discussed again at another synod next year. BBC
