The meeting, facilitated by Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, centred on the personal testimonies of five individuals about their experiences as transgender and intersex Catholics.

One of the participants, Michael Sennett, a transgender man, shared his experience of being rejected by a priest at the age of eight for requesting to wear a suit instead of a dress during his First Communion.

"I cried because I was convinced God hated me" Sennett said. He spoke of his attempted suicide at 17 and how the support of a Catholic nurse helped him see a path forward in his faith and identity.

Another testimony came from Nicole Santamaria, an intersex woman from El Salvador, who highlighted the invisibility of intersex people, even within the LGBTQ+ community.

Santamaria's own experience of intersexuality and her Catholic faith informs her work with marginalised communities. She believes she is called to serve those often overlooked and misunderstood.

Although academic studies are disputed, it is estimated that about 1.7% of babies are born intersex.

More harm than good

Ray Dever, a retired Catholic deacon and father of a transgender woman, spoke about the struggles faced by transgender Catholics.

Dever said he noticed a "stunning lack of compassion within so much of the church for transgender people". This included people being excluded from the life of the church in many dioceses and parishes. They were also denied sacraments and turned away from Catholic schools.

"It pains me to say this but, right now, I think that we as a church are doing more harm than good in our approach to gender theory and transgender individuals" Dever told the Pope.

While Pope Francis has criticised gender theory, calling it an "ugly ideology" that erases differences, he has also condemned the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people.

Earlier this year, the Vatican published Dignitas Infinita ("Infinite Dignity") which denounces discrimination based on sexual orientation and warns against gender theory and sex-change intervention.

Sources

America Magazine

CathNews New Zealand

"This Sunday, Pentecost 2024, I'm planning to come out publicly as transgender" Matson told Religion News Service on May 17.

Matson, who has a doctorate in religious studies, said he was speaking out with the permission of his bishop, John Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington in Kentucky.

He may be the first openly trans person in his role in the Catholic Church, Matson added. However, Religious News Service was not able to verify that claim.

Matson, 39, explained that he transitioned in college and converted to Catholicism four years later.

He hoped his coming out would create a meaningful conversation about a particularly contentious subject in the community.

"You've got to deal with us, because God has called us into this Church" Matson said in his message about transgender Catholics.

Matson's coming out came soon after the Vatican issued "Dignitas Infinita", a 20-page treatise that described gender theory, abortion and surrogacy as attacks on humanity's connection with God.

"Vatican-level documents that have come out on the subject have not engaged with the science at all" Matson said about the Church's official take on trans issues.

He has sent multiple letters to the Vatican and asked leaders to engage with more trans individuals.

To serve the church

When he felt called to serve in the Church, Matson consulted a canon lawyer about his options. He was advised that becoming a diocesan hermit would be the best thing for him.

However several communities had rejected Matson before he finally found a place in Kentucky.

Seeing Matson's sincere call to serve, Bishop Stowe approved his path as a diocesan hermit—a solitary religious vocation less bound by community restrictions.

"Hermits are a rarely used form of religious life, but they can be either male or female" Stowe explained. This allowed Matson to live his vocation without pursuing priesthood or sacramental ministry.

Matson's coming out aims to foster dialogue and greater understanding within the Church.

"I don't have a hidden agenda, I just want to serve the Church" he said. "People can believe that or not."

Both Matson and Bishop Stowe anticipate potential backlash but remain committed to this path. Stowe emphasised that "My willingness to be open to him is because it's a sincere person seeking a way to serve the Church."

Sources

Religion News Service

New York Times

CathNews New Zealand

Some Catholics support Infinite Dignity's message. Others are dismayed.

Surrogate born woman against "womb renting"

A woman born in 1991 via a surrogate mother, who is now a leading campaigner for the abolition of "womb renting", is of a like mind to Francis regarding surrogacy.

It's a practice the Pope has called "deplorable".

The negative sides of surrogate pregnancies aren't made well known, says Olivia Maurel. It's totally unethical in her book.

"We're used to having in the news a lot of beautiful stories of children born via surrogacy … and we are not used to hearing the bad aspects of surrogacy and how it's totally unethical" Maurel told CNA in an interview on 5 April.

It led her to experience abandonment trauma, identity issues, and to make several suicide attempts.

"I was a product of surrogacy and I've always felt it inside me — a baby made to order, a commodity for money" she said.

It's totally unethical in her opinion.

Vatican view

On Monday the Vatican declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity.

These practices are on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices which reject God's plan for human life, the Vatican says.

The Vatican's doctrine office, with the Pope's approval, issued "Infinite Dignity" on 25 March. It is a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years.

The Vatican repeated its rejection of "gender theory" - the idea that one's biological sex can change.

God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and people must not tinker with that or try to "make oneself God" the document says.

"It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception."

The document distinguishes between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and "genital abnormalities" that are present at birth or develop later.

Those abnormalities can be "resolved" with the help of health care professionals, the document says.

Transgender community distressed

Feedback from transgender Catholics shows they are disappointed with the new Vatican document.

That's because in essence, Infinite Dignity is as a restatement of longstanding Catholic teaching.

Transgender Catholics are particularly dismayed however, as recent moves by Pope Francis had encouraged some to hope the Church might become more accepting.

"A document like this is very hurtful to the larger LGBTQ+ community but especially to the trans community" one lifelong Catholic transgender man says,

"We have seen the care and love Pope Francis has personally extended to the trans community in his personal interactions, yet this document fails to extend that same respect, love and support."

Source

• AP News
• Catholic News Agency
• AP News

"We didn't know the background. We don't do FBI checks on people who want to be buried," Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said during his podcast Tuesday.

He said cathedral staff try to be welcoming when someone requests a funeral.

"All they know is somebody called and said, ‘Our dear friend died. We'd love to have the funeral at St Patrick's Cathedral. It would be a great source of consolation. She's a Catholic. It would be a great source of consolation for us, her family and friends.'

And, of course, the priest at the cathedral said, ‘Come on in. You're more than welcome,'" Dolan said.

Read More

Its board-approved nondiscrimation policy followed the putting together of the College's "President's Task Force for Gender Identity and Expression" earlier this year.

St Mary's Catholic College's updated policy says it "considers admission for undergraduate applicants whose sex is female or who consistently live and identify as women".

Among the 32 Board members are six religious sisters from the college's founding order and two priests.

Confirming its programmes are open to all, the College points to its mission: to 'empower women, through education, at all stages in life'.

"Essential to this mission is fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive campus experience."

College president Katie Conboy says admitting men who identify as women "encompasses our commitment to operate as a Catholic women's college".

In a Novembr 21 email, she reportedly told students and faculty that the school is "by no means the first Catholic women's college to adopt a policy with this scope".

At this stage, how the new policy will work in practice is still being determined.

The President's Taskforce findings include recommendations for housing policies, the student newspaper reported.

Indiana's bishop pushes back

Indiana's Bishop Kevin Rhoades is pushing back against the plan to allow enrolment of transgender students at St Mary's.

He is urging the College Board to correct its admissions policy "in fidelity to the Catholic identity and mission it is charged to protect".

The Board should "reject ideologies of gender that contradict the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the human person, sex and gender" he said in a 27 November statement.

"The desire of Saint Mary's College to show hospitality to people who identify as transgender is not the problem. The problem is a Catholic woman's college embracing a definition of woman that is not Catholic" he added.

Rhoades says he should have been included in the Board's decision-making regarding the transgender admissions.

"It is disappointing that I, as bishop of the diocese in which Saint Mary's College is located, was not included or consulted on a matter of important Catholic teaching" he says.

"To call itself a ‘women's college' and to admit male students who ‘consistently live and identify as women' suggests that the college affirms an ideology of gender that separates sex from gender and claims that sexual identity is based on the subjective experience of the individual."

Online backlash

"Just found out my alma mater [Saint Mary's] ... will be accepting BIOLOGICAL MEN starting next fall" one online post reportedly said.

Online comments are also reported as saying:

"This decision is blasphemous and a complete rejection of the Church and its teachings on gender and sexuality,"

Another post is reported as saying: "We [Catholics] have an issue here!! Don't allow your child to go to this school!! [Saint Mary's] Shame on YOU!".

• CNA
• Pillar

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki has alleged that transgender men have been "unknowingly admitted" to diocesan seminaries and houses of formation for religious orders.

Listecki, who serves as the chairman of the bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, told the nation's bishops in a Sep 22 memo that they should consider DNA testing and certification from a medical expert chosen by a bishop.

In the memo, Listecki says his committee had been made aware of "instances where it had been discovered that a woman living under a transgendered identity" had been admitted to a seminary or a religious institute's house of formation.

In one instance, Listecki wrote, an individual's "sacramental records had been fraudulently obtained to reflect her new identity. In all instances, nothing in these individuals' medical or psychological reports had signalled past treatments or pertinent surgeries."

Listecki said that in every known case of a "transgender" candidate, her true sex had been discovered before ordination. He asked bishops to be careful to ensure that candidates for the priesthood are male.

The archbishop's memo cites the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which requires the diocesan bishop to admit to major seminary and to ordain "only men who possess the requisite physical and psychological qualities."

"Moreover, a diocesan bishop can require various means to establish moral certitude in this regard," Listecki also wrote. He added that the committee encouraged him to write to the bishops about those occurrences so that they would "exercise special vigilance" as a new year of seminary formation begins.

While mainline Protestant and non-denominational Christian seminaries have increasingly welcomed transgender students, the Catholic Church has taken an unbending stance on transgender issues.

Pope Francis has often spoken out against what he refers to as "gender ideology". In 2019, the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education released an extensive statement in which it asserted that gender theory seeks to "annihilate the concept of nature."

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee referred questions from NCR about the memo to the bishops' conference. Chieko Noguchi, a spokesman for the conference, declined to comment on Listecki's memo.

Sources

National Catholic Reporter

Gloria TV

During the last term of last year Arryn, who identifies as non-binary and asks to be referred to using the pronouns they, their and them instead of he or she, changed uniform and stopped being called Erin.

All this happened with the school's support and Arryn, whose parents asked their last name not be used, was "a little surprised" at just how willing the school was to let them wear boys' pants and the girls' uniform's top half.

Arryn's mother, Keely, said the school had been "absolutely brilliant" and concerns Arryn would be bullied after changing uniform were not realised.

Her advice to other parents with children who did not identify as either he or she was to "listen to what your child wants" and contact support groups if things were a struggle.

Mr Steve Read, the school's deputy principal said Kavanagh College's decision to be accepting fitted with its core values of service, respect, justice and truth.

"I guess justice and respect are the two that sit around this issue.

People don't choose this path. They are born into it and feel like they are in the wrong gender and we need to respect that difference."

Read accepted there would be some in the Catholic community who were against the school's stance.

"Whereas we would say we are all made in God's image ... and therefore we should be being supportive and respectful."

Source

• odt.co.nz
• Image: gender.wikia.com

She goes on to speak about how it is that she is a feminist and still a Catholic, and that while she finds in the Church "things that abhor and disgust me ... none of these takes away from the core tenets of my faith: that Jesus is both human and divine, the son of God, and in him I am saved".

• Read Kristina Keneally's address
• Image: Illawarra Mercury