Courage International

Courage International, also known as Courage Apostolate, is an approved apostolate of the Catholic Church, which "ministers to those with homosexual or same-sex attractions".

The group consists of laymen and laywomen usually under anonymous discretion, together with a priest, to encourage its members to abstain from acting on their sexual desires and to live chastely according to the Catholic Church's teachings on homosexuality. Courage also sponsors an outreach program, Encourage, which ministers to relatives and friends of persons with same-sex attractions providing help by "supporting one another and their loved ones through discussion, prayer and fellowship." As a means of guiding homosexuals to a life of penance and chastity, the ministry uses the pastoral letters issued in 1986 by Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later Pope Benedict XVI, and those issued in 2006 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.