Vatican text on gays and divorce revised after conservative complaints is approved

Catholic bishops last night approved a revised document laying out the church's position on gays, sex, marriage and divorce, saying the report was a "balanced" reflection of church teaching and pastoral needs.

The final report of the two-week meeting of bishops was rewritten to incorporate amendments to a draft released earlier in the week which had shown an unprecedented openness toward gays and Catholics who live together without being married.

Conservatives had harshly criticised the draft and proposed extensive revisions to restate church doctrine, which holds that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered" but that gays themselves are to be respected, and that marriage is only between a man and woman.

Before the final vote, Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Brazil, Cardinal Oswald Gracis of India and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of Italy, the Vatican's culture minister, said they would all approve the revised text and that they expected the fellow bishops would do the same.

They said the document was balanced, positive and open.

"It's accepting everybody, embracing everybody, wanting to embrace everybody, a pastoral approach of the church today," Gracias said.