The working document for the 2018 Synod on the Youth noted, "Some LGBT youth…wish to benefit from greater closeness and experience greater care by the Church."

Sister Monica Astorga, an Argentinian Discalced Carmelite Nun, has been working with transgender women since 2005.

In a June 2018 interview, she recounted a similar desire for among the LGBT community for "closeness" with God and the Church

"For me, God is very present in every encounter I have with trans people," she said.

"When they arrive at the monastery, they come to ask for a hug, for someone to listen to their pain and to show them God."

Sister Monica, whose ministry has received support from Pope Francis, is not the only Catholic sister working with the trans community.

Indeed, there are multiple stories of sisters walking with and advocating for this marginalized community.

Sister Monica recounts one story demonstrating the desire for community and hope among the women she works with:

"One day in January, on a very hot day, a 27-year-old trans girl came to me crying.

"She said, ‘Sister, please tell me about God.'

"After a long talk, she asked me to help her out of prostitution.

"She told me how much of a torment it was to be on the streets.

"Now, years later, she has been working in a clinic for over a year and is studying at the university."

Sister Monica's call to work with the transgender community came when a trans woman was referred to the Carmelite Monastery after donating to her local parish.

In speaking with the woman, Sister Monica asked about her dreams for the future.

The woman's dream was simply to die in a clean bed.

From that conversation, Sister Monica knew God was calling her to walk with these women.

She began regularly inviting trans women to the monastery.

What followed was a move to uncover their dreams hidden beneath pain and abuse. Sister Monica's desire became clear: to help the women pursue their revealed aspirations.

In the beginning, she said, "Many did not have any dreams.

They lived day-to-day wondering who would be the next to die."

Through monthly prayer and support meetings, the women began to hope for a life without prostitution, going back to school, and having a safe home to live in.

Due to discriminatory hiring practices, work is hard to come by for trans people.

Sister Monica set out to create employment opportunities whereby the women would have the means to earn money outside of prostitution.

Sister Monica worked with the local bishop to find an old house that could be converted into a home for these women.

She turned part of the house into a sew-shop and beauty salon where the women work and earn money.

She's currently adding a full-time residence for drug and alcohol addiction recovery.

Recently, Sister Monica worked with her government to purchase an old apartment building which is being renovated into 12 apartments for trans women with delicate health.

Sister Monica laments the low life expectancy for transgender individuals, which in Argentina is 40 years. Continue reading

• This post is edited from its original, published on August 1, 2018 - A Beautiful Bond: Argentinian Nun Ministers to Transgender Women
• Image: Jesuit Post

The letter, signed by 107 Catholics aged between 18 and 35, was addressed to Scottish Archbishop Leo Cushley.

Cushley is one of the bishops attending the synod on young people which began this week in Rome.

The letter notes "In some of the discourse surrounding the synod ...a trend of suggesting that difficult aspects of the Church's teaching, in matters of morals and matters of faith, need to be downplayed, or even put aside ... to be relevant to people's lives and sensitive to their difficulties."

The letter notes some discourse implies priests who hold to orthodox teaching are "out of touch with the lives of lay people, and of young people especially."

The signatories say this line of thought "is utterly in contradiction" to their lived experience.

"What made us become and/or remain Catholic, against ever increasing cultural pressure, are those aspects of the Faith that are uniquely Catholic, not things that can be found in social clubs, in NGOs or in political parties. What matters is precisely the Church's claim to truth," the letter says.

The signatories also say young Catholics are "inspired by the heroic virtue espoused by the Church, in opposition to the cynicism and pessimism of postmodern culture."

It also has praise for "priests who proclaim orthodox teaching."

They say these priests are bringing Christ's light into their lives.

In their opinion, the synod needs to concentrate on helping share the fullness of the Faith with young lapsed Catholics who have not rejected Catholicism but what they call "a poorly-understood shadow of it."

Source

• Scottish Catholic Observer
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Catholic Standard

The survey was sent out in June to help prepare for the Synod of Bishops' assembly on young people that will take place in October next year. The synod will be held at the Vatican.

The Vatican international poll targeted people 16-29 years of age. This is the first time the Vatican has directly sought to consult in this way.

Of the 148,247 people who visited the survey site, 65,000 answered all the questions.

About 3,000 left their email addresses and said they wished to be kept informed of the survey's outcome.

In comparison to the 2.5 million people who participated in the 2016 World Youth Day in Poland, the figures are considered "quite low" for a worldwide survey.

Observers noted the survey communications were not very effective in some countries. In some instances the language barrier was a problem. They say as an example, the survey was not translated into German.

German bishops made their own translation and distributed it locally. However, the Synod's secretary-general, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, did not include young Germans' responses in the survey response statistics.

In his summary of comments which young people made about the survey, Baldisseri cited several testimonies from French youth who expressed satisfaction with the way it was carried out.

He also noted criticisms. Some respondents felt it was too long, others felt a number of important issues were hardly addressed or not at all.

These include problems linked to alcohol, drug and medicine consumption, sexuality, relationship issues and links with other religions.

Young people who attended a September seminar which the Vatican held in preparation for the synod had already expressed some of these concerns.

Baldisseri says youth contribution "is essential for the conclusions to correspond to the reality of the Church and society".

Without young people's contribution he says "there is a risk of building ‘castles in the air', which will remain uninhabited because young people do not identify with them", Baldisseri says.

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Catholic Majority