Antoine knew his identity early on and has never doubted it since. The 39-year-old was 10 when he realized he was attracted to men. Since then, explained the devout Catholic, "everything gets stuck when you don't want to lie."

"Imagine being a young, practicing Catholic and having the feeling that hell is all around you, ready to swallow you up if you decide to make the slightest faux pas, like kissing another boy," said Antoine, who still keeps his sexual orientation a secret from some people, notably in his parish, requesting anonymity like most of those who agreed to share their stories.

Trying to suppress his desires and reconcile them with his faith, Antoine decided to become a priest. "It also helps to explain to others why, as a teenager, you don't like football, why you don't get into fights, why you don't have a girlfriend," he said with a smile. But a document published by the Vatican in 2005, banning the ordination of homosexual priests, halted his plans. He then chose to enter a monastery, a place where, he thought, chastity would be easier and temptations less prevalent. He stayed there from the time he was 22 until he was 36 and only started to embrace his love life after leaving.

Like Antoine, many French people are struggling to reconcile their Catholic faith with their identity as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Although many parishes and clergy are striving to be more inclusive and sensitive to this issue, homosexuality is still considered problematic within the Church.

Less conservative than his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II, Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed his desire to create a more inclusive Church. Currently, the issue has surfaced at his Synod on Synodality, an important meeting on the future of the institution, being held from October 4 to 29 in Rome. The working documents of this major assembly raise questions about "concrete" measures to "reach out to people who feel excluded from the Church because of their affectivity and sexuality" (for example, remarried divorcees, people living in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people, etc.).

More specifically, it concerns the question of the blessing of homosexual couples, a request made by many believers but opposed by the most conservative elements of the Church, believing that it effectively amounts to the institution recognizing a lifestyle deemed "disordered."

In Catholic teaching, being attracted to a person of the same sex is not a sin in itself, but sexual acts, practices or married life are considered sins. Thus, a fulfilling life, faithful to one's orientation, seems to be a challenge for believers because it opposes the Church's point of view. "Suppression of feelings and desires," "inner and moral suffering," "loss of confidence and self-esteem," "guilt and anxiety": Many LGBTQ+ people feel excluded, with no real place within an institution where sexual morality essentially revolves around a heterosexual couple dedicated to procreation. "French Catholicism is fairly conservative on these issues, compared to Germany and Belgium, despite the recent changes in the Church's perspective on the issue, particularly after the legalization of same-sex marriage. The clergy are having real difficulty speaking out on these subjects," explained Céline Béraud, sociologist at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

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