If you follow political news, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a “trial balloon.”

One online dictionary definition states: “A trial balloon is a proposal that you mention or an action that you try in order to find out other people's reactions to it, especially if you think they are likely to oppose it.”

Here’s a famous example. Let’s say that the Obama White House wants to shift its stance on gay marriage, once the president has reached a point — in 2012 — where he may or may not need strong support from social-conservative Black church leaders. Thus, it was a surprise, kind of, when Vice President Joe Biden, went on “Meet the Press” and said that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriages.

The White House needed to know (1) how other Democrats would respond, (2) how Black-church leaders would respond and (3) how potential conservative critics would respond, including Catholic leaders in America. Central to all of this, of course, is how this “trial balloon” is framed in the coverage by elite media. It took very little time for Barack Obama to get on board.

During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), we looked at a complex drama unfolding in the European leadership of the Catholic church. The key player is Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg, and a leader — the term is “relator general” — in the Pope Francis team leading the Synod on Synodality on the future of the Catholic faith. Depending on who one talks to, this synod is either a chance to listen to Catholics around the world or the front door to Vatican III.

But here is the key quote from Hollerich, drawn from an interview with the German Catholic news agency KNA.) This is part of a collection of blunt, verbatim statements from Hollerich collected at L’Espresso:

“The Church’s positions on homosexual relationships as sinful are wrong. I believe that the sociological and scientific foundation of this doctrine is no longer correct. It is time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching, and the way in which Pope Francis has spoken of homosexuality could lead to a change in doctrine. Meanwhile, in our archdiocese, in Luxembourg, no one is fired for being homosexual, or divorced and remarried. I can’t toss them out, they would become unemployed, and how can such a thing be Christian? As for homosexual priests, there are many of these, and it would be good if they could talk about this with their bishop without his condemning them.”

Believe it or not, these remarks have drawn next to zero coverage in major news media. It’s fair to ask, “Why is that?”

Did this Jesuit cardinal float this trial balloon a bit early? It’s clear, after all, that he represents powerful forces in the shrinking, but still powerful, Catholic churches of Europe. Cardinal Hollerich is president of the confederation of European bishops’ conferences.

Here is the opening of a National Catholic Register report on the end of the recent German “synodality” meetings:

FRANKFURT, Germany — A plenary meeting of the German Catholic Church’s “Synodal Way” ended … with votes in favor of draft texts calling for same-sex blessings and changes to the Catechism on homosexuality.

Participants backed a document on Feb. 5 entitled “Blessing celebrations for couples who love each other” by 161 votes to 34, with 11 abstentions, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. They also endorsed further discussion of a text on the “Magisterial reassessment of homosexuality” with 174 votes in favor, 22 against, and 7 abstentions.

The text says that “passages 2357-2359 and 2396 (homosexuality and chastity) of the Catechism should be revised” as part of a “re-evaluation of homosexuality.” 

When floating trial balloons in Catholic life, there are all kinds of audiences that matter. What kind of reaction, for example, would these Hollerich remarks receive in America? How about the large, growing and quite traditional churches of Africa and Asia?

This is where it’s important that there was little or no coverage — at least in elite American media — of this sweeping call for changes on centuries of Catholic doctrine on a hot-button subject.

Then again, this Jesuit cardinal had to know that one reaction mattered more than others, as in the reaction of the Jesuit pope. Did Hollerich float this trial ballon AT the pope or FOR the pope? Perhaps the cardinal moved too early?

How can church observers interpret silence from Pope Francis? Consider this input from The Pillar:

The cardinal is well-known, and apparently much beloved, by Pope Francis, his confrere in the Society of Jesus. The pontiff in 2019 made Hollerich the Church’s first cardinal from Luxembourg. And last year, even after Hollerich had called into question Catholic doctrine on holy orders, Pope Francis named him the “relator general” of the Church’s synod on synodality — the final report of the “synod on synodality” will be drafted with Hollerich’s supervision.

While Francis has said he wants to encourage open dialogue among Church leaders, it’s worth asking whether Hollerich’s most recent comments will begin to test the pope’s commitment. 

Since the Vatican has tried to emphasize that the “synod on synodality” will not challenge Catholic doctrine, it will no doubt represent a problem for Francis among many of the world’s bishops that one of his top synodal officials has effectively repudiated Catholic sexual morality. 

The cardinal’s goal might be simply to move the “Overton window” on issues of sexual morality — in which case, he can call it a win that he “started a conversation” even if the Vatican shuts it down. 

As always, it’s crucial to note a vague, but important, element of the Hollerich statement — a foggy bit of language that is seen in many press reports on religious debates about LGBTQ issues.

The key: What does it mean to say that Catholicism teaches that “homosexuality is a sin”? See this clarification in a National Catholic Register analysis piece: “Cardinal Hollerich and the Destabilization of Doctrine.”

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.

Let’s keep reading:

… 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.

The statement was shocking, an instance of a prominent Church leader openly criticizing a moral doctrine that has been held by the Church quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus (always, everywhere, from its beginning), siding with secularized culture on the contentious topic over orthodox teaching. …

On this analysis, Cardinal Hollerich wasn’t just attacking a discrete set of moral and anthropological doctrines. Instead, he was undermining the notion of doctrinal integrity itself, destabilizing the entirety of the Church’s body of teachings and calling into question the Church’s capacity to teach anything with authority, to communicate anything about Divine Revelation with accuracy.

What about the Catholic left?

It took a few days, as far as I can tell. Here is the top of an analysis piece by Daniel P. Horan at the National Catholic Reporter: “History will judge the church harshly for its treatment of LGBTQ persons.”

The church has rightful shame and remorse for some things the institution has done, views it has espoused and teachings it has taught over the centuries. These include the Crusades and its adjacent Islamophobia, justification of chattel slavery, complicity in colonialism, prohibition of religious liberty, portrayal and treatment of women, and its history of antisemitism, among others.

Over time we have come to recognize these attitudes and behaviors to be indefensible. And I believe that, in time, history will likewise judge the discrimination against and treatment of LGBTQ persons by the church and many of its members as similarly reprehensible.

Recently, a number of signs suggest my intuition is correct. Take, for example, the bold and direct statement of Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who leads the pan-European Catholic bishops' conference. …

Admittedly, Hollerich's keen sense of perspective and direct critique of this problematic church teaching represents something of a "minority view" among ecclesial leaders today. However, this is not the first time that the ostensible minority view may turn out, in the end, to prevail against some seemingly long-standing theological perspective or social convention.

This leads to another crucial question: What does The New York Times say? Will the newspaper of record report or opine on this drama? We will see.

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.

FIRST IMAGE: “Trial balloon” image featured at the website of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Punta Gorda, Fla.