The U.S. bishops on Friday voted to move forward with reviewing and updating their directives for Catholic health care services, after several bishops emphasized that the process should include a “broad consultation,” including the voices of the transgender community.
The proposal to review Part Three of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services passed unanimously on a voice vote on the final day of the USCCB’s plenary assembly in Orlando.
The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) is a guide released by the bishops to offer ethical standards in health care, based on Catholic teaching about human dignity.
The guide is periodically updated. It is currently in its sixth edition, which was approved by the bishops five years ago.
Bishop Daniel Flores, head of the bishops’ doctrine committee, explained that part three of the document, dealing with professional-patient relationships, has not been updated since 1994. It does not include guidance on “radical modifications of the human body,” such as surgeries and hormones given for gender dysphoria, he said.
In March, the USCCB’s administrative committee authorized the publication of a doctrinal note from the conference’s doctrine committee on “moral limits to technological manipulation of the human body.”
The note said, among other things, that transgender surgeries are immoral because they “do not repair a defect in the body…these interventions are intended to transform the body so as to make it take on as much as possible the form of the opposite sex, contrary to the natural form of the body. They are attempts to alter the fundamental order and finality of the body and to replace it with something else.”
Flores introduced a proposal to incorporate the doctrinal note into the ERDs. The revision would involve the doctrine committee consulting bishops, moral theologians, doctors and other experts to create a draft that would be subject to review, discussion, and vote by the bishops.
When Flores asked if there were any questions, several bishops came forward to emphasize that they believe there should be a “broad consultation” on the issue, including the voices of people who identify as transgender.
Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego made a distinction between “the doctrinal tradition of the Church, particularly on male and female” and the need “to wrestle with the existential question of those who are suffering from dysphoria.”
“I think there’s a fundamental difference between a declaration on doctrine, which was issued, and the formulation of the ERDs,” he said.
He stressed that the ERDs are not just a statement of doctrine but an application of doctrine to “the existential situation of people who are suffering.”
“The ERDs are meant to be a pastoral, medical document to inform and guide the health care ministries,” he said.
“I urge therefore that the consultation be very wide and deep, within the medical communities and with people who are suffering from dysphoria also,” he said.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin emphasized the need to listen to people and to present things in a way that is understandable to people in the language of the ERDs.
“I would like to also encourage a broad consultation, including people who are from the trans community,” he said.
Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City also called for a “wide consultation, especially with the various Catholic health care systems.”
Auxiliary Bishop Robert Casey of Chicago, speaking on behalf of Cardinal Blase Cupich, who had to leave the meeting early, asked that the consultation include dioceses with a significant Catholic health care presence.
Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle also called for a “broader consultation,” saying that policy makers, physicians, and CEOs of health care systems should all be able to weigh in on the discussion.
Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, who is a member of the doctrine committee that released the note on technological manipulation of the human body in March, emphasized that there had been extensive consultation leading up to the development of that note.
“Part of the process that we had in the doctrinal note was listening not only to members who identify themselves as part of the trans community, but those practitioners, theologians, ethicists, family members as well,” he said….
From The Pillar
Why do we dignify trans people by referring to their collective as the trans community? Do we refer to the alcoholic community? The cancer community? The white community? No. Just stop it. Trans isn’t a legitimate human identity.
What’s next? The transpecies community? Will Bishop Tobin request that a broad consultation be made with people who think they are really dogs before the USCCB can issue guidelines saying that no Catholic hospital should perform species-affirming surgeries that make human beings have bodies resembling dogs, including adding tails and floppy ears and giving them chemicals to grow fur all over their skin?
Some things just are wrong. Trans is one of them that is obviously wrong. The people calling for dialogue and consultation are just using that as a delay tactic to wear down opposition.
Because trans people, like all people, deserve dignity and respect from Christians. At least that’s what the catechism says.
Calling people illegitimate doesn’t seem to raise itself to the level of respect that we are called to render because they are created in the image of God himself.
Tell us, do you think it’s right for a man to have mutilating surgery and take hormones in order to have his body resemble female anatomy so he can pretend to be a woman? Does such a thing deserve respect? I sure don’t think so. It deserves condemnation. It doubly deserves condemnation when people try to convince children to do that. I drew the line at gay relationships. Shouldn’t have been allowed, should never be celebrated. Now look where we are because too many people refuse to draw the line and not cross it. Until our society is willing to draw a line and move it back to normalcy, America is doomed.
This is the truth. You pull a thread and keep pulling it, eventually the whole sweater unravels.
Yes I believe what the Catholic Church teaches about respect for all human beings. You don’t, apparently, by your own admission. I thought dissenting views were not published in the comments section of CCD, but I guess not.
Do you believe what the Catholic Church teaches about bodily mutilation being gravely sinful? That’s what transgender surgery is: bodily mutilation.
Just like Jesuit Jimmy Martin, some fellow Catholics won’t respond to inconvenient direct questions they don’t want to answer because it would reveal too much about what they really think, as if it isn’t already obvious that Jimmy Martin and his fanclub among the laity and the episcopacy all support gay marriage and gay sex and the bodily mutilation that is given the Orwellian name “gender affirming health care”.
Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law. CCC 2297
This is included in the paragraph on torture, kidnapping, terrorism, and hostage taking.
It is referring to actions of cruelty.
It does not refer to people making decisions about their own bodies.
We know that sterilization so that one can have sex without consequence of pregnancy is immoral.
We also know that Jesus said ” If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away..It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. Matthew 5:29-30
It is in the passage on adultery. The interpretation is that no amount of sacrifice is too much to avoid Gehenna.
Saints spoke of doing violence to oneself as necessary to avoid hell or purgatory.
The Lord Jesus was using hyperbole in that passage to express how evil serious sin is. He did not mean for us to really pluck our eyes out or cut our hands off ourselves, but to find good ways of avoiding serious sins. Custody of the eyes is one way and avoiding people who tempt us — both men and women need to practice that. He does allow us to lose body parts, though, if we misuse them. It happens all the time.
Whatever you have to do to keep from committing grave sin, you should do. Even doing violence to yourself.
Nobody believes Jesus anymore.
Some believe in Him.
YFC, are you gay or transgender? Are you trying to to transform yourself into the opposite sex? The Catholic Church teaches that this is wrong.
Genesis 1:27:
God created man is His image. In the image of God he created him. MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM.
So, you’re right YFC, but you conveniently leave out the rest of the verse.
God did not create gay or trans. Sin did that.
I will love sinners (because I am one myself) but I will not affirm their sins or the effects of others’ sins on them.
“Because trans people, like all people, deserve dignity and respect from Christians.” YFC, here is my question to you: how do we communicate respect to persons who have done abhorrent things to their own body in defiance of the Creator? The respect cannot in any manner imply agreement with the wicked choice of self-mutilation. We can say “God loves you despite your sinful choice which however may be irreversible and which stands as a landmark rejection of Providence,” and can add,” but God’s love is not reversible.” But then, every celebration of this mutilation is their judgment against God and an act of unbelief. What makes this so poignant is when trans say they are happier after mutilation they are in fact rejoicing in unbelief and encouraging this in themselves and in their trans peers. So if the bishops want to mix this trans perspective into the pudding, the result can only be a foul taste. This ecclesiastical accompaniment of trans voices, as desired by the Francis contingent, bodes ill as the Church will slip into a quagmire of contradictions from which its moral theology may never recover. Is the Jesuit way of doing theology?
They are not doing it in defiance of the Creator. The choice may have made out of suffering and desperation.
You should not counsel anyone.
Please just tell them to talk to their pastor.
You read too much into these things.
They are just people trying to get through life.
The option to have a sex change operation should not be available. It’s presented as a choice when it shouldn’t be an option. It’s presented as something that will help, but it doesn’t. It merely exacerbates a more deeply rooted psychological problem instead of treating that problem.
I know of someone who was a childhood acquaintance who had surgery as an adult to pretend to be a woman. He looks hideous. He still has masculine features so now he looks like a woman who has lots of things wrong with her. I could tell growing up that something was off about him. He was gay for a while and got AIDS. Then he decided he wasn’t gay but he was trans. He has a whole website dedicated to his life as a trans, he left the Catholic Church, he now calls himself a trans pastor, and he’s trying to spread the gospel of trans. He’s not trying to get through life; he’s fallen and he’s trying to recruit for the LGBT movement.
I am glad you noted that you could tell that even as a child there was something off about him.
He could tell, too.
I am sure that his journey was created by an attempt to relieve pain.
May God revert him and give him peace.
Hey Big Mac. Maybe these people who are suffering from dysphoria need some catholic counseling
Don’t confuse Cardinal Tobin with Bishop Thomas Tobin. Very different guys.
Hey big mac, God created only two genders, Male and Female (Genesis1:27) and no doctor has the right to change what God created.
Hey Big Mac. No doctor has the right to alter the gender that God has created.
I think you might have a pic of the wrong Tobin. The article attributes the statement about a broad consultation to Cardinal Joseph Tobin, current bishop of Newark, New Jersey. The other Tobin, and the one in the pic at the top of the story as I write, is Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, although now retired.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin is a well-known gay and trans friendly lefty in the mold of Cardinal McElroy.
Bishop Thomas Tobin is faithful and orthodox.
Fixed – thanks very much
Midwest teachers hold a conference on how to ‘subversively and quietly’ teach explicit sex ed, and gender transition students without parental knowledge.
https://thepostmillennial.com/midwest-teachers-hold-conference-on-how-to-subversively-and-quietly-teach-explicit-sex-ed-gender-transition-students-without-parental-knowledge
Solution: Take your kids away from them. BTW, I know all the “reasons” you can’t and that’s okay. Just be willing to live with a mangled “child” for the rest of your life and their life.
Gender dysphoria is a mental illness known as body dismorphic disorder.Why consult with members of this group to see what is in their best intrest to conquer this disorder?Respect these people but don’t cater to their illness.
That is over simplified.
Not sure why you left off the last 3 paragraphs. they were important.
How old are Cardinals McElroy, Tobin and Cupich?
Not old enough.
Any bishop or priest who supports LGBT is a fake Catholic.
All Catholics are supposed to love all people including those in the LGBT community.
Please pray for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls.
US Bishops (collectively) are closer to the dullest than the sharpest knives in the drawer, humanly speaking. And humanly speaking, it’s “a win” if they uphold human life, even in the confused manner that is the outcome of the USCCB meeting just concluded. I think it’s great that McElroy graduated from Harvard, but it’s a tragedy that he didn’t find some girl there with whom to form a family. Perhaps under those circumstances he would have been a good man.
You’re assuming he likes girls.
Jesuits then: “I will risk my life, travel great distances, and endure many hardships to bring Christ to the heathen masses.”
Jesuits today: “It’s okay to be gay.”
If you click the link, the Pillar story has in the 5th paragraph a link-doctrinal note
I’m puzzled. Are you qualified to diagnose peoples psychological issues en maser? Over the internet? Enough to say that doctors and psychologists who have met with and counseled these individuals sometimes for years, couldn’t see?
To others, I’d it obvious that many of the comments on these threads demonstrate a basic lack of respect for people, what they go through in life? Comments that say things like “gay poisons everything it touches”. How is that in keeping with anything Jesus taught us to treat one another? How is it doing what the catechism tells us to do?
I hope you understand that this kind of speaking harms people. Makes them feel degraded. Pushes them into feeling unloveable…by family, society, Church, and God. How is it that the message you want to spread, your Bad News, isn’t the Gospel good news…but “sorry, Charlie, you and everything about you is wicked and unloveable.” Please reread what you write here, and imagine if it were your own son or daughter. Because it might just be. Thousands of kids have been driven into the streets and into toxic relationships and suicidality because people around them say the kinds of things many of you write.
Ah, the old canard that if you don’t let people be LGBT and if we don’t pass laws favoring LGBT and if we don’t teach and affirm LGBT in schools and if we don’t take kids away from parents who don’t affirm their LGBT then kids will die. Enough, already.
Doctors and psychologists who support LGBT are all scientifically and professionally compromised and biased.
Look around. Gay does poison everything it touches. We were a better society before gay and trans became the civil religion.
Watch Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?” documentary, and you’ll get it right away. The professionals are looney.
YFC – We have all been entrusted to both defend and promote the dignity of each person because we are made in God’s image. The measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person. I don’t want to downplay your point about emotional turmoil because I think that those in the gay lifestyle have indeed suffered to a degree. My issue stems with your seeming support for a group of gay males dressed as nuns who use sexually suggestive images to mock our women Religious, and to even blaspheme the Crucifix. This group that you defend threatens the human dignity of every Catholic. Their “good works” are but an unholy and artful deception, and I am most surprised that you are unwilling to admit that.
Axiom the Sisters have been doing their schtick for decades. Where have you been? I would also note that they are opening chapters not closing them. They are expanding their numbers not losing members. They reach tens of thousands of people. I wonder what they are doing right? But they are not a sudden thing and. Drag itself has been around for centuries in some cultures and people laughed it off for what it is: part parody. Yet suddenly because some retrograde Governor has a problem with it, you have a problem with it. Drag is so permanently wound into some cultures that your critiques are of the culture itself. Wake up to what has been all around you all your life or go back to sleep!
If you cant tell the truth about earthly things, how are you going to tell the truth about heavenly things?
YFC You should repent, return to the Catholic Faith, and join Courage.
Did you go before the Tabernacle, make an act of humility and ask God if He is offended by the Sisters?
Hyperbole statement: the drag sisters “threaten the human dignity of every Catholic.” Funny.
Makes no sense.
Wanna hear another one?
NY Post: Pride is being hijacked by people who don’t like Catholics.
When a person is still on a good path and they are tempted to veer off it (premarital sex, gay sex, theft. violence, leave Church, adultery, trans surgery) lay people can say “Don’t do it.”
Sin can be repented and the sooner the better.
Once someone has gone down the wrong path and been there a while, everywhere they look the next step is still wrong. They cannot find their way back. Only God can lead them.
Lay people should then tell them to talk to a priest.
I knew a Catholic who was going to go to a psychic. I told them not to do it. They had no idea that it was a sin. If they had gone, and taken a psychics advice, they could have ended up really bad off.
Astrology is getting very popular again. This too is bad. Do not even read your horoscope. People who read them start to believe them. If you know someone who does it and has been doing it for a long time, have them talk to their priest.