The head of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Va, has written that God and the church teach that a person “is created male or female,” and that “no one is transgender”.
In a new document, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge calls gender reassignment “wrong and harmful”. He says everyone is male or female as seen in that person’s body.
The document titled “A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology” notes that public schools “aggressively promote” what the bishop called “a false understanding of the human person in their advocacy of gender ideology.”
“Parents with children in public school must be even more vigilant and vocal against this false and harmful ideology,” Bishop Burbidge wrote.
He then explains that, based on medicine, natural law, and divine revelation, “we know that each person is created either male or female, from the moment of conception. A person’s sex is an immutable biological reality, determined at conception.”
“Because the body tells us about ourselves, our biological sex does, in fact, indicate our inalienable identity as male or female. It is a truth reflected in every cell of the body.”
Bishop Burbidge said the church wants to lead people who feel discomfort with their biological sex “to the truth and to healing.”
He warned against efforts to affirm such dysphoria as an identity as “pernicious” and a form of false charity.
“In this sensitive area of identity, there is a great danger of a misguided charity and false compassion,” the bishop wrote. “In this regard, we must recall, ‘Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral.’”
“The claim to ‘be transgender’ or the desire to seek ‘transition’ rests on a mistaken view of the human person, rejects the body as a gift from God, and leads to grave harm,” Burbidge continues.
“To affirm someone in an identity at odds with biological sex or to affirm a person’s desired ‘transition’ is to mislead that person. It involves speaking and interacting with that person in an untruthful manner.”
“More than anything else, the Church desires to bring you the love of Jesus Christ Himself,” says the bishop. “That love is inseparable from the truth of who you are as one created in God’s image, reborn as a child of God, and destined for His glory.”
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