Though 500 years have passed since the Protestant Reformation began in the eastern German town of Wittenberg, traditional and conservative Catholics find themselves eyeing the German church with concern once again. The country’s Catholic bishops recently launched a two-year summit aimed at “newly assessing” long-held Catholic beliefs on sexuality, love and priestly life, including how Read more
In addition to being used as an argument against artificial birth control and women’s ordination, sexual complementarity is also put forth as an argument against the goodness of same-sex relationships. According to this thinking, the procreative compatibility of male and female reproductive organs is a type of microcosm and symbol of the compatibility between man Read more
A British doctor lost his National Health Service job because he refused to renounce his belief that gender is determined at birth. When his instructor said reports must only refer to the patient – or “client” – by the sex that person identified themselves as, the doctor says a discussion took place among the medics Read more
A member of the Samoa Fa’afafine Association,Tim Baice, said marriage equality is not a priority for his group or the Samoan community. last week Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi declared he was adamant there would be no same-sex marriage in Samoa after it was recently allowed in Australia. Continue reading
The Archbishop of Suva, Peter Loy Chong says Catholics in Fiji treats various gender communities with equal value. “For us, everyone is the same and this has also been addressed by the Pope, who made special reference to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual and intersex (LGBTI) community,” he said. The archbishop is one Read more
The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship has urged Catholics to resist both “ideological colonisation” and the removal of God from society. Cardinal Robert Sarah did this during a speech at National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, on May 17. The Guinean cardinal spoke of a religious persecution and threat being visited on Read more
Two US Catholic colleges are adopting housing policies which will allow students of different sexes to share a room based on gender identity. The College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco (USF) will have the gender-inclusive housing policies for the 2016-17 academic year. The USF recently updated its Read more
The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality. 1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health Read more
Caitlyn Jenner’s “coming out” in the pages of Vanity Fair this week caused a stir, well, pretty much everywhere. Much of the commentary I saw was positive. There were some on the left, particularly feminists, who raised questions about Jenner’s decision to embrace a highly sexualized image of femininity. Some religious conservatives expressed sympathy to Jenner Read more
A new Vatican document has expressed a negative view of elective cosmetic surgery for women. An “outline document”, produced by a panel of female consultants to the Pontifical Council for Culture, comes ahead of an upcoming assembly devoted to women’s issues. The document, titled Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference, warns that procedures such as facelifts Read more