The leaders of Catholic Christianity wrapped up a synod on Sunday. This process of open discussion and consideration has been going on for the last fifty years. With Pope Francis I and 270 cardinals and bishops in attendance, the Catholic Church tried to tackle some rather thorny issues that has been plaguing them for decades.

Two of the more contentious issues plaguing Catholic Christianity has been their stances on homosexuality as well as on divorce, according to The Washington Post. With regard to divorce, Catholic Christianity considers much of a non-married situations to be “irregular” living situations. Such living situations being if someone has remarried without an official annulment from the church hierarchy. In that context, the synod considered what the situation is concerning Catholic sacraments and if the divorced can fully participate in those. The arguments continued with regard to if re-married people could be admitted back in without examining their consciences with a Catholic Christian priest. They decided to leave the final decision on it to Pope Francis.

What seemed to make a slight uproar was their courageous tackling of the homosexual issue for Catholic Christianity. In fairness, Protestant Christianity doesn’t exactly support homosexuality either. For the assembled, however, saying little or nothing seemed preferable to harsh and condemning speech. For Catholic Christianity, homosexuality is considered “disordered” thinking that anyone would be attracted to the same gender.

The subject is so inflammatory in Christianity in general that the bishops and cardinals found that there was no way to discuss it openly without causing a serious uproar and clamor. There is, already, a polarization that has been going on in the Catholic Christian community for many years. For many Christians, there is no tolerance for homosexuality and it is considered, by many, to be a Christian sin.

The Catholic Christian church is like any other. It is affected by the course of history. Until 1973, homosexuality was officially a psychiatric disorder. Prior to that, in the 1950’s, homosexuality was considered by the psychiatric community to be a sociopathic behavioral disorder.

Homosexual men and women who wish to remain Christians are facing a difficult time of it with regard to the powers that be in both Catholic and Protestant Christianity. For the Catholic Christian hierarchy to even bring the subject up at its recent synod, however, is remarkable in its attempt to, finally, bring it out into the light and deal with it.