{"id":218298,"date":"2019-06-10T22:20:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T02:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=218298"},"modified":"2019-06-10T22:20:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T02:20:02","slug":"vatican-rejects-gender-change-to-alarm-of-lgbt-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/10\/vatican-rejects-gender-change-to-alarm-of-lgbt-catholics\/","title":{"rendered":"Vatican rejects gender change to alarm of LGBT Catholics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The document, published during LGBT Pride Month, was immediately denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people. Advocacy group New Ways Ministry said it would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm. (Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VATICAN\u00a0CITY — The\u00a0Vatican\u00a0issued an official document Monday rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisting on the sexual \u201ccomplementarity\u201d of men and women to make babies.<\/p>\n

The document, published during LGBT Pride Month, was immediately denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people. Advocacy group New Ways Ministry said it would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm.<\/p>\n

The text, \u201cMale and Female He Created Them,\u201d was intended to help Catholic teachers, parents, students and clergy address what the\u00a0Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education called an \u201ceducational crisis\u201d in the field of sex education.<\/p>\n

It called for a \u201cpath of dialogue\u201d and listening on the issue of \u201cgender theory\u201d in education. But even priestly advocates for LGBT Catholics noted that the text appeared to have relied entirely on previous papal pronouncements,\u00a0Vatican\u00a0documents and philosophers and theologians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real-life experiences of LGBT people seem entirely absent from this document,\u201d said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote a book on improving Catholic Church outreach to the LGBT community, titled \u201cBuilding a Bridge.\u201d \u201cWe should welcome the congregation’s call to dialogue and listening on gender, and I hope that conversation will now begin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay Brown of the Human Rights Campaign — the largest LGBT-rights group in the United States — said the\u00a0Vatican’s stance \u201csends a dangerous message that anybody who experiences gender diversity is somehow less worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis has repeatedly argued the position that people cannot choose their genders. But the document represents the first attempt to put the\u00a0Vatican’s position, first articulated fully by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2012 speech, into a comprehensive, official text.<\/p>\n

The document called for a new alliance among families, schools and society to offer a \u201cpositive and prudent sexual education\u201d in Catholic schools so children learn the \u201cfull original truth of masculinity and femininity.\u201d<\/p>\n

It called gender fluidity a symptom of the \u201cconfused concept of freedom\u201d and \u201cmomentary desires\u201d that characterize post-modern culture. It rejected terms such as \u201cintersex\u201d and \u201ctransgender\u201d and said the purpose of the biological \u201ccomplementarity\u201d of the male and female sex organs was to ensure procreation.<\/p>\n

Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry, said such concepts are outdated, misinformed and ignore contemporary science on factors beyond visible genitalia that determine gender.<\/p>\n

\u201cGender is also biologically determined by genetics, hormones and brain chemistry — things not visible at birth,\u201d DeBernardo said in a statement. \u201cPeople do not choose their gender, as the\u00a0Vatican\u00a0claims, they discover it through their lived experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Catholic Church should encourage this process of discovery, saying it’s \u201ca process by which individuals discover the wonderful way that God has created them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VATICAN\u00a0CITY — The\u00a0Vatican\u00a0issued an official document Monday rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":218299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-nicole-winfield","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218300,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218298\/revisions\/218300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}