The Franciscan Daniel P. Horan does not mince his words. What the US bishops’ conference wrote about the “moral limits of technological manipulation of the human body” was a catastrophe.
The director of the Center for Spirituality at Saint Mary’s College at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana) accuses the bishops of denying the reality of transgender people and compounding their suffering.
The document is theologically, scientifically and pastorally a disaster. The debate is about people who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Hospital guidelines
In their 14-page guidelines, the bishops prohibit Catholic hospitals from “surgical or chemical interventions designed to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex.”
Under the leadership of Bishops William Lori (Louisville, Kentucky) and Daniel Flores (Brownsville, Texas), who are known to be conservative, it is said that there are only two scenarios that would allow such interventions: either to fix a “defect” or if a part of the body must be sacrificed for the sake of the whole.
With this attitude, the US bishops see themselves on the side of Pope Francis, who has not changed the Church’s teaching on the subject of transgender people. The document also quotes Popes Benedict XVI, John Paul II and Pius XI. On the other hand, sources from medicine and natural science are missing; and those affected were probably not spoken to either. The latter particularly hurts Christine Zuba of Blackwood, New Jersey.
Transgender people feel excluded
In her own words, the transgender feels unconditionally accepted in her parish of Saint Peter and Paul after coming out at the age of 58. But in the hierarchy of the church there is no willingness “to deal with us. We are not even mentioned.”
Many US Catholics had been waiting since 2019 for a statement from the bishops on the attitude towards transgender people. The guidelines could now prevent trans people from receiving the medical care “they need,” criticizes Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the organization of non-heterosexual Catholics “New Ways Ministry”.
The bishops do not take scientific knowledge seriously. That is neither “good theology nor acceptable pastoral care”. The bishops’ transgender teaching is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the US healthcare system.
According to the Catholic Health Association, one in seven people is cared for in one of the country’s more than 600 Catholic clinics. Which significantly increases the pressure on those affected – especially in rural areas where Catholic hospitals are often the only point of contact.
Precarious situation for trans people in the USA
The psychological stress among trans people can be seen, among other things, in the high suicide rates. In addition, there are increasing physical assaults against them. According to statistics, the number of victims more than doubled between 2017 and 2021 in the United States alone.
The bishops’ teaching document and the critical response to it brings the discord within the US church on the transgender issue back into focus. The West Virginia legislature banned youth sex reassignment surgery in early March; Kentucky soon followed with similar bans.
Draft laws in planning
At the federal level, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to take the same step and present a bill in the House of Representatives. In the current year alone, Republican lawmakers have introduced more than 100 bills aimed at restricting the rights of trans people. Many of these relate specifically to health care.
A disturbing political development for transgender people, in which the US Catholic Church has now positioned itself. “I pray for the bishops who have fallen victim to this culture war,” said queer Catholic Michael Sennett of the Archdiocese of Boston, “that they will find peace and healing and seek to share the love of God with all in the flock.”