CATHOLIC bishops drew a historic two-week meeting to an end at the weekend by voting down even weak statements that would have welcomed gay people into the church.

The bishops approved a final report covering a host of issues related to Catholic family life, acknowledging there were “positive elements” in civil heterosexual unions outside the church and even in cases when men and women were living together outside marriage.

They also said the church must respect Catholics in their moral evaluation of “methods used to regulate births,” a seemingly significant deviation from church teaching barring any form of artificial contraception.

But they failed to agree on any language in a section about ministering to gay people, rejecting a paragraph which stated that “people with homosexual tendencies must be welcomed with respect and sensitivity.”

It stood in stark contrast to an initial draft released days earlier which stated that “homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community” and was hailed as a breakthrough by Catholic gay rights groups across the world.

Two other paragraphs — concerning whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should still be barred from receiving communion — also failed to meet the two-thirds threshold for inclusion in the report.

New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay rights group, said it was “very disappointing” that the final report had backtracked from the welcoming words contained in the draft.

However, it said it hoped for better results next year, when “the makeup of the participants will be larger and more diverse.”

Pope Francis has insisted that the full document — including the three paragraphs that failed to pass — be published along with the voting tally.

It will then serve as a basis for debate leading up to the October 2015 meeting, which will produce a final report — from which he will write his own document.

“Personally I would have been very worried and saddened if there hadn't been these animated discussions or if everyone had been in agreement or silent in a false and acquiescent peace,” Francis told the synod hall after the vote.