U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to officially ban “transgender” surgeries at all Catholic hospitals and health centers, formalizing the Church’s opposition to medical interventions intended to make a person appear more like the opposite sex.
The vote represents an important development: American Catholic bishops, both individually and collectively, are increasingly speaking out against gender ideology, its lies, and the harm it is causing people – who are wonderfully created by God as male or female (Gen. 1:27).
The New Guidance
The bishops, gathered in Baltimore, Maryland for their annual plenary assembly, amended the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to prohibit Catholic institutions from providing puberty blocking drugs, opposite-sex hormones and surgeries which “alter the fundamental order of the human body in form or function.”
“With regard to the gender ideology, I think it’s very important the church makes a strong statement here,” said Bishop Robert Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, in a public session before the vote.
The amendment passed overwhelmingly with at least two-thirds supports. It amends Part Three of the sixth edition of the directive, which hadn’t been updated since 1994.
Catholic hospitals must “preserve the integrity of the human body” when treating gender dysphoria, the document states, adding Catholic health care providers can “only [use] those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body.”
In addition to adopting the new guidance, the bishops elected conservative Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City as the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He will serve a three-year term.
An Important Pastoral Letter
Earlier this year, Bishop Daniel Thomas, bishop of the Diocese of Toledo, released a pastoral letter offering guidance on gender ideology.
Thomas’ letter, The Body Reveals the Person: A Catholic Response to the Challenges of Gender Ideology, is the “longest statement by a U.S. bishop dealing exclusively with gender ideology,” Catholic News Agency reports.
“Sex is determined at conception, observed in utero or at birth, and cannot be changed,” Bishop Thomas wrote. “Every person is either male or female, and this fact never changes, despite an individual’s conflicting feelings or experiences.”
He added,
The … radical claim that people have the right to adopt whatever “identity” they happen to desire and have no obligation to justify … is not only incompatible with the reality of the sexed body, but also is incompatible with the Christian doctrine of Creation.
Bishop Thomas’ letter is the second such letter written by American Catholic bishops.
In 2023, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; and Bishop Michael Barber, bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, released their own pastoral letter, “The Body-Soul Unity of the Human Person.”
“Gender ideology is, in many important respects, radically opposed to a sound understanding of human nature,” the bishops warned. “It is thus opposed to reason, to science, and to a Christian view of the human person.”
The Vatican’s Dignitas Infinita
In 2024, the Vatican published a document, Dignitas Infinita (Infinite Dignity), which rejected transgender medical interventions as a threat to human beings’ dignity as creatures made in the Imago Dei, the image and likeness of God.
“All attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected,” the document states clearly.
“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.”
“Any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” it adds.
Furthermore, the document condemned gender theory as a form of “ideological colonization” that is “extremely dangerous” because “it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”
Therefore, gender theory goes so far as to constitute an attack on the family itself: “[This ideology] envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”
Paragraph 2333 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states,
Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life (emphasis in original).
In an age of confusion, clarity is kindness. It’s good news that more Catholic bishops are speaking clearly, confidently, and compassionately about the important issue of gender ideology.
All people, including those who are transgender-identified, deserve to be treated with love, compassion and support. But “affirming” a person’s false beliefs (i.e. they are trapped in the “wrong body”) is not compassionate nor is it kind.
In John 8:32, Jesus taught, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Please pray all transgender-identified individuals will come to know the truth: God created human beings as male or female. Only by repenting of sin, as we all must, and aligning their life with the truth that God has revealed in His creation can individuals be set free from the lies of gender ideology.
To speak with a family help specialist or request resources, please call us at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).
Related articles and resources:
Counseling Consultation & Referrals
God’s Amazing Grace in a Transgendered Person’s Life
The Journey Back to My True Identity
Chloe Cole: Transgender Surgery Regret
Understanding “Transgenderism”
Responding to a Transgender-Identified Family Member
Equipping Parents for Back-to-School
Vatican Says ‘Transgender’ Surgeries, Gender Theory Violate Human Dignity
Two Catholic Bishops Issue Pastoral Letter Warning About Gender Ideology
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