In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper (Tuesday), their lawyer, Matthew Bobo, said that there was no need for the hearing originally scheduled for Tuesday in the district court of Tarrant County (US state of Texas).

He did not give any reasons for the sisters' partial withdrawal. The Carmelite nuns wanted to enforce in court that neither the locally responsible diocesan bishop of Fort Worth, Michael Olson, nor the new superior appointed by the Vatican dicastery for religious orders, Mother Marie of the Incarnation, was not allowed to enter the convent.

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Specht was indicted in December 2021 on two charges related to child sexual abuse. One of those charges was dropped during court proceedings.

Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington issued a statement after the priest's acquittal. "While Father Specht was found not guilty, I nevertheless convey my heartfelt and sincere sorrow to anyone who has suffered sexual abuse," Burbidge said.

"The Diocese of Arlington continues to offer whatever counselling or pastoral support we can to help them manage their pain and suffering," he added.

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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."

Sources

Washington Times

CNS News

The online-only St. Isidore of Seville Virtual School - named after the patron saint of the internet - aims to be fully operational on 8 September.

It will teach the regular curriculum to students in kindergarten through to grade (year) eight, and class sizes will be capped at 23 people.

Students will attend an online Mass every week and like their peers will have daily prayer and preparation for the reception of sacraments.

"We hope this new virtual school provides parents concerned about their children returning to the classroom an option they are confident will meet the high standard of excellence they have come to expect throughout our schools," Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington says.

Burbidge praised the "great creativity and flexibility" among the Catholic school community in the diocese "that has made this new endeavor a reality."

Dr. Joseph Vorbach, the Superintendent for Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Arlignton, says all of the diocese's schools will have in-person instruction this coming school year, although some will do a hybrid model of in-person and e-learning.

While St. Isidore of Seville Virtual School is set to go for the coming school year, Vorbach says he is not sure if the school will continue on for years to come.

"We want to evaluate the service - the niche, if you will- that this school provides."

If things go smoothly, and it makes financial sense to continue the school in the future, "we can really seriously look at it as a component of a thorough, flourishing Catholic education going forward in the future," he says.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency