The vote occurred during the USCCB's spring meeting in Orlando. It passed via voice vote, with no audible dissenters or abstentions.

Technically, the procedural vote doesn't specifically bar gender-affirming care but allows the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine to begin the process of amending the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services — the "authoritative guidance on certain moral issues" for Catholic health care institutions.

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But so far, no luck.

Alexander was suspended from St Joseph's Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. The teen asserted in class that there are only "two genders." This offended some trans students, and he was suspended and then arrested when coming back to the school.

"I tried to sort it out," said lawyer James Kitchen. "We had without prejudice negotiations with the school and there was just no budging."

When I heard this, I thought this was a positive for both sides. Sit down and talk. Find a solution.

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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

In the case of my family, that included first-hand experience with LGBT people.

In the fall of 2013, at the beginning of our oldest child's sophomore year at Georgetown University, she came out as transgender.

With that news, my family found itself plunged into questions and issues that surround families of faith with LGBT children.

If there is one truth that has become evident, it is that the reality transgender people live is miles from public perception.

Ongoing legal battles for the transgender community (including over the use of public restrooms) demonstrate how pervasive the misunderstandings and prejudices about gender identity continue to be.

In the case of the church specifically, a series of formal and informal statements has called into question the very existence of transgender individuals and has warned about "an ideology of gender," described as an ideology that seeks to eliminate sexual differences in society, thereby undermining the basis for the family.

I respect the theology and the good intentions that underlie these statements, but I think they are based on lack of knowledge and experience and false information about transgender individuals.

My wife and I are cradle Catholics and have large extended families that are predominantly Catholic.

Our three children all attended Catholic schools, including Catholic colleges.

After decades of active lay ministry in the church, including various marriage enrichment programs, I was called to the diaconate, was ordained a permanent deacon in 2009, and completed my master's degree in theology in 2011.

To our dismay, our daughter descended into a deep depression during high school and attempted suicide.

Almost overnight we went from the usual parental worries about grades and college applications to just trying to get her through her junior year of high school alive.

My daughter's depression would eventually lead to her questioning of gender identity.

This was intimately connected with her mental health struggles.

We now understand that, like many LGBT individuals struggling with the decision to come out, she was faced with what seemed like an unsolvable dilemma: Either continue to deny who she really was or come out and risk losing her entire world of family, friends, and faith.

This inner battle drove her to consider suicide.

The overly simplistic, often negative message about LGBT individuals from the church that was so important to her upbringing only served to aggravate that situation.

As for my wife and me, we experienced the full range of thoughts and emotions that any parent does when a son or daughter comes out.

There was shock at the news, a lack of understanding of gender issues, internal conflict about what the church teaches about human sexuality, confusion and guilt about what we should do as parents, profound sadness at what felt like the loss of the person who had been our son, and fear and worry for what the future would hold for her.

There were arguments, tears, sleepless nights, and prayers—lots of prayers.

Over time we realized that we hadn't lost the person who had been our son but, when she embraced her gender identity, we got our child back. Continue reading