He was appointed a consultant to two bodies of the Roman Curia, the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers. He participated as a "collaborator" in the Synod of Bishops on the Family in October 2014. A critic of the Synod's advice that homosexuals needed to be accompanied with respect, cited Anatrella's recemt statement: "We must clear the field of many clichés: homosexuality ... has no genetic, biological or neurological origin. Its origin is principally psychological. Today a lot of false research and many experiments have failed to demonstrate its origin is hormonal".