(LifeSiteNews) — In a scorching social media takedown, Bishop Joseph Strickland castigated Father James Martin, S.J., for his open support of a Vatican Synod report which appears to downplay the nature of homosexual sin while undermining the traditional teaching on marriage.

Blasting the pro-LGBT Jesuit priest, who welcomed the report as a “major step forward for the Catholic Church,” Strickland responded: “This is not a step forward unless your path is forward into the abyss!”

READ: Bishop Strickland: Synod report on homosexuality a ‘direct assault’ on Catholic teaching

Fr Martin this is not a step forward unless your path is forward into the abyss! https://t.co/9yX7ZBw8Sz

— Bishop Joseph Strickland @ Pillars of Faith (@BishStrick) May 6, 2026

Strickland has criticized the Study Group’s reporting on homosexuality as a “direct assault upon Catholic moral doctrine and upon the words of Scripture itself,” arguing that the “Church cannot change what God Himself has revealed.”

The Final Report of Synod Study Group 9, “Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of emerging doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues,” presents the testimonies of two homosexual men in same-sex “marriages” on their “lived experience” as Catholics who belong “to the LGBTQ community.” One testimony states: “Sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship” but in “a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfilment.”

READ: Synod report suggests homosexual ‘relationships’ may not be sinful

Martin celebrated the Vatican report and the publication of the testimonies, arguing that the men “speak movingly about their relationships with God, Jesus, and the Church,” while lamenting “the pain that they have experienced in response to how they have sometimes been treated by the church. Listening in this way to LGBTQ people is a major step forward for the Catholic Church.”

According to a report from Vatican expert Diane Montagna, one of the men whose testimony is presented in the Synod text was one of the men in a purported same-sex “marriage” who received a “blessing” from Martin in New York City one day after the release of Pope Francis’ Fiducia Supplicans.