267 Chapter 17 COMMUNICATING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S POSITION ON GENDER AND HOMOSEXUALITY Jack Valero Over the last two decades, there have been deep cultural changes in the areas related to homosexuality and gender identity in all Western countries. Some of the related issues are still quite controversial and often appear in the news. The teachings of the Catholic Church in these areas seem to be at odds with these cultural developments, and for many people the teachings themselves have become incomprehensible. The objective of this article is to show that it is possible to address these issues in a calm and reasoned manner, by understanding the nature of the disagreements and trying to fnd common ground, and in that way help the Church’s position to be better understood rather than rejected a priori. To illustrate this we will use the Catholic Voices method of communication, as well as some examples from what Pope Francis has said about these topics. 1. the catholic Voices communications method Catholic Voices is a communications project to train ordinary Cath- olic men and women to speak on television and radio about controversial issues related to the Catholic Church. The project started in Britain in 2010 but has now spread to over twenty other countries. 1 1 Cfr. Jack Valero and Austen Ivereigh, Who Know Where They Stand: Catholic Voices and the Papal Visit to the UK (Rome: Edusc, 2011), as well as the Wikipedia page for Catholic Voices: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Voices.