President Joe Biden criticized Florida’s regulation of transgender medical care for children and ban on gender ideology in the classroom, calling the measures “close to sinful.”
Biden said in an interview with Daily Show guest host Kal Penn: “What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean it’s just terrible what they’re doing.”
Although the president did not specify which laws he was referring to, Republican lawmakers in Florida and other states have introduced bills and regulations to protect children from transgender medical interventions and restrict classroom instruction in gender ideology.
During his interview, Biden added that federal legislation might be necessary to prevent states from adopting certain bills that affect transgender policies related to children.
“It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man or I want to become a woman,” the president said. “I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings, they love and have feelings. … It’s cruel. We [should] make sure we pass [federal] legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”
In Florida, a ban on transgender surgeries and medications for children, issued by the state’s Board of Medicine, goes into effect March 16. Lawmakers have also proposed legislation banning transgender medical procedures.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation that prevents schools from promoting gender ideology through discussions of transgenderism and sexual orientation to young children in kindergarten through third grade. The legislation requires such discussions in later grades to be age appropriate.
Other states, such as Mississippi, Utah, and South Dakota, have adopted similar legislation to ban sex change operations for children. Most states do not restrict sex change surgery for minors at this time.
Although Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, called the Florida bills “close to sinful,” his interpretation sets him on the opposite side of the issue from the Vatican and Pope Francis.
The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education on June 10, 2019, published a document titled “Male and Female He Created Them,” which rejects the idea that a person can choose his or her gender.
“There is a need to reaffirm the metaphysical roots of sexual difference, as an anthropological refutation of attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated,” the 31-page document states.
“The denial of this duality not only erases the vision of human beings as the fruit of an act of creation but creates the idea of the human person as a sort of abstraction who ‘chooses for himself what his nature is to be,’” the document continues, citing Pope Benedict’s Dec. 21, 2012, address to the Roman Curia.
“Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him,” it continued.
Pope Francis has consistently voiced his opposition to what he calls gender ideology.
In an interview on March 10 with the Argentine daily newspaper La Nación, just three days before Biden’s interview aired, the pontiff referred to gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations.”
“Why is it dangerous?” Pope Francis said. “Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women. All humanity is the tension of differences. It is to grow through the tension of differences. The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation.”
This is not the only issue on which Biden has strayed from the Catholic faith. During the president’s interview on the Daily Show, he reiterated his support for same-sex marriage and defended his support for the Respect for Marriage Act, which federally recognizes same-sex marriage. The president has also been a staunch supporter of abortion and urged Congress to codify the Roe v. Wade abortion rules into federal law.
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The exterior of the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center at Kansas State University. / Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2023 / 17:15 pm (CNA).
There’s a quote from Jerome Tang, head coach of the Kansas State University (KSU) basketball team, that Father Gale Hammerschmidt likes.
“I didn’t come to rebuild. I came to elevate,” Tang said after taking the team’s helm last year. (His team bowed out of the NCAA Tournament last spring after making it to the Elite Eight.)
Hammerschmidt, chaplain at St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center at Kansas State, said he thinks “elevation” is an appropriate word for what the Catholic community he leads is doing right now. On Jan. 28, the local bishop dedicated the Catholic center’s brand-new, $20 million church — a project more than two decades in the making.
But now that the new church is open, the real work of bringing the Catholic faith to students on campus can continue. The grand new church presents an opportunity to “elevate everything we do here at St. Isidore’s,” Hammerschmidt told CNA.
“We know that the work is just now beginning. And if we’re going to create a beautiful space, we want to be able to do beautiful things in the space. And nothing is more beautiful than a soul encountering the living God,” the priest told CNA.
Hammerschmidt, a Kansas native and 1995 Kansas State alum, was ordained to the priesthood in 2012 and was assigned to St. Isidore’s in 2017. The Catholic center sits just across the street from the Kansas State campus, which is itself the lifeblood of the small city of Manhattan. There had been discussions about the need for a new church building for several years before he arrived.
“I already knew that there was a need to build a new church. This is something that had been talked about for probably 20 years, honestly, even since right around the time that I was graduating from college,” Hammerschmidt told CNA.
Father Gale Hammerschmidt. Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
Part of the reason was that the population served by St. Isidore’s had outgrown the old space, which sat about 400 and was regularly filled to bursting on Sundays with overflow seating in the student center library.
Grace Gorges, a K-State student studying graphic design, got involved with the Catholic community at the college as soon as she arrived at KSU. From the get-go, “the Masses were always crowded, always overflowing,” she said, adding that the fallout from COVID made things even worse when parts of the sanctuary had to be roped off for distancing purposes.
The campaign to raise money for a new church was dubbed “Home Away from Home.” About $5 million had already been raised before Hammerschmidt’s arrival, and the campaign ultimately raised nearly $20 million for the project, he said. Some 1,500 individual donors contributed to the campaign.
Nebraska-based lead architect Kevin Clark came to Manhattan in 2017 and began asking the community what they wanted their new church to look like. Countless students requested a beautiful interior, “traditional-looking in nature,” the priest said.
“We want this to look like a church that has been standing forever and will stand forever,” he recalled students telling him.
“We wanted to make sure that it was an epic-looking building” with an interior that would raise hearts and minds “to the beauties of heaven,” he said.
The congregation kneels during the dedication Mass for the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center at Kansas State University. Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
Given her involvement in the community and her interest in beauty and design, Hammerschmidt asked Gorges to serve on the building committee, which meant she would have a say in the church’s aesthetic. Gorges said she was invited to help design the church’s tile flooring. She researched churches online for inspiration and also drew from her personal experience of visiting numerous beautiful sacred spaces on a trip to Italy.
Ridge Pinkston, a fifth-year senior when CNA spoke with him, studying medieval history, was also chosen to be on the building committee. He told CNA that the committee — which included Hammerschmidt, diocesan board member Doug Hinkin, and others — was given almost complete control over the look of the new church.
He said the committee had numerous meetings with the architect to figure out the look of everything in the new church — they spent an entire two-hour meeting designing the look of the altar, for example. He said the building committee “represented the body of owners” to the architect and designers, similar to how when a family builds a house, the architects and contractors consult them on how they want it to look. He said it was a “huge privilege” and a great learning process to be a part of the committee as a student.
Despite his interest in medieval architecture, the churches that Pinkston primarily drew inspiration from were mainly stateside; most are located in the Archdiocese of Denver. They included the medieval revival-style chapel at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary and the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and Holy Ghost Catholic Church, both in downtown Denver.
Ultimately, the architects and designers of St. Isidore’s produced a neo-Gothic interior with pointed arches that dropped many a jaw when it was unveiled. The interior also features numerous instances of vine imagery — an image of Jesus himself, but also a subtle nod to the college’s agricultural heritage. Evergreene Architectural Arts, a renowned design studio in New York, provided the decoration, Hammerschmidt said.
Not everything in the interior is entirely new, however. Hammerschmidt said at the request of students, stained-glass windows depicting the seven patron saints of the seven original colleges at Kansas State (the university was originally Methodist-founded) were saved and incorporated into the new church. Among those saints are the church’s namesake, St. Isidore — an 11th-century Spaniard and patron saint of agricultural workers — as well as the namesake of the student center, St. Robert Bellarmine. A much-loved crucifix that hung over the tabernacle in the old church was also used again in the new church.
The crucifix in the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center. Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
Gorges said she loves the triumphal arch over the altar in the finished church, which draws one’s eyes toward the focal point of the crucifix, and onward to heaven. A beautiful church, she said, is “not the end-all-be-all by any means. But if it’s at all possible, beauty matters. And we should be trying to live that in our daily lives.”
Pinkston said his favorite design element in the new church, apart from the ceiling of the apse, is the new altar itself, which he said really strikes him as being designed in a way that calls to mind a place where sacrifices are made.
“Rightfully, that should be one of the most beautiful features,” he said of the altar.
The designers also took care to design the exterior of the church to match the native limestone buildings of Kansas State, in an effort to make the church an integral part of the campus it serves.
Bishop Gerald Vincke of Salina, Kansas, dedicated the diocese’s newest church on Jan. 28. The 14,000-square-foot structure can accommodate about 700 for Sunday Masses.
Bishop Gerald Vincke of Salina, Kansas, sprinkles holy water during the dedication of the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center on Jan. 28, 2023. Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
Hammerschmidt said daily Masses at St. Isidore’s were already attracting nearly 200 students on a regular basis. A key part of the Catholic center’s success, he said, is the presence of missionaries from the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). FOCUS maintains a presence on college campuses with the goal of winning people to the Catholic faith through authentic friendships and forming others to go out and do the same through Bible studies, small groups, and retreats.
“We also work closely with the high schools in the state of Kansas, especially the Catholic high schools. And we have many strong Catholic high schools in our area. And so we just have students who, the first day they show up in Manhattan, they already know about us,” Hammerschmidt said.
In addition, he said, the Catholic center is in cooperation with the local Diocese of Salina and the nearby Diocese of Wichita, whereby Wichita — which has been blessed in recent years with large vocation numbers — sends a priest to serve as Hammerschmidt’s associate. Large numbers of students come to KSU from Wichita — Gorges among them — who get involved with the Catholic center thanks to strong word of mouth.
“It’s good for them to have one of their own priests looking after them … I think it’s working phenomenally well.”
Stained-glass windows in the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center. Credit: Jacob Bentzinger
Working at St. Isidore’s, Pinkston said he has gotten to know “the regulars” that came to the church before the rebuild, but now with the new church, he said he sees many more people coming in to pray whom he has never seen before. He also said it was inspirational for him to see a friend — a man who is joining the Catholic Church this Easter — weeping openly when he first saw the new church’s interior.
“That was really the first time I’d ever seen him express emotion … That’s definitely a huge blessing to be able to see that happening,” he said.
Hammerschmidt was almost overwhelmed by the support of the many students, alumni, and others who made the new church possible. Months on from the chapel’s opening, the 9:09 p.m. daily Mass is always well attended, with about 300 students attending regularly. As of September, St. Isidore’s has 40 student-led Bible studies with around 400 Bible study participants.
“The outpouring of joy and gratitude has been incredible. The number of people who we will just see walking through the church from out of town is unbelievable,” Hammerschmidt said.
“And then beyond that, we had so many more hundreds of people praying for the project, and we just have been supported unbelievably well.”
Hammerschmidt said he wants the students and community of Kansas State to take ownership of the magnificent new church and to use it for their spiritual benefit.
“We want to let everybody in Manhattan and on K-State’s campus know that we built this church for them,” he said.
“If they just need a place of encounter with God to just come in to be seated, to be immersed in the beauty and the silence and to just let God speak. That’s our hope. For the Catholics, for the non-Catholics, for the students, for nonstudents, just for anyone who needs a place to encounter the living God, this would be the place for them.”
Light from the stained glass in the new St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center. Jacob Bentzinger
Haven’t read and don’t plan to read this treatise from moral theologian Biden.
Good to know mutilation of children is only “close to sinful”. Whew. That’s a relief. Wouldn’t want to do anything outright sinful.
When will the Catholic Church ban Pres. Biden from receiving Holy Communion? There is a time when showing mercy means being strict, not wishy-washy. And not just Pres. Biden, but other politicians holding office and creating/advocating/passing laws that legitimize sin? And journalists who promote these evil laws? I don’t get it. If my children acted out, they got one “gimme” from me or their daddy-I’ll let it go this time, but NEXT TIME…” And if/when NEXT TIME happened, they were held accountable and given an appropriate disciplinary action by their parents, not out of a need to “control,” but because we loved them. Not disciplining the President and others who promote sin is a LACK OF LOVE on the part of the Church.
Is Biden a Catholic? He doesn’t appear to embrace godly views which are held by the Catholic Church! Is the pope Catholic? Some speculate, a cultural Marxist?
With speaker Nancy Pelosi calling late term abortion ‘sacred ground’, drag queens ‘wonderfully creative’, Pres Joe Biden calling limitations to transgender mutilation of kids verging on sin, vowing total war on the right to life in the womb we’ve come to full compliance of Antichrist worship. Any priest, bishop, any churchman whatever rank who encourages that the body and blood of Christ be given them, shouldn’t we assume, incurs equal divine justice?
Quoth the Prophet Tumble-bug Biden: “It’s cruel. We [should] make sure we pass [federal] legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”
Just “like we passed on same-sex marriage.” Indeed.
Haven’t read and don’t plan to read this treatise from moral theologian Biden.
Good to know mutilation of children is only “close to sinful”. Whew. That’s a relief. Wouldn’t want to do anything outright sinful.
When will the Catholic Church ban Pres. Biden from receiving Holy Communion? There is a time when showing mercy means being strict, not wishy-washy. And not just Pres. Biden, but other politicians holding office and creating/advocating/passing laws that legitimize sin? And journalists who promote these evil laws? I don’t get it. If my children acted out, they got one “gimme” from me or their daddy-I’ll let it go this time, but NEXT TIME…” And if/when NEXT TIME happened, they were held accountable and given an appropriate disciplinary action by their parents, not out of a need to “control,” but because we loved them. Not disciplining the President and others who promote sin is a LACK OF LOVE on the part of the Church.
Is Biden a Catholic? He doesn’t appear to embrace godly views which are held by the Catholic Church! Is the pope Catholic? Some speculate, a cultural Marxist?
Prayers for them both.
Trusting Biden to know sin is like travelling with Kamala Harris to the moon on a bus.
With speaker Nancy Pelosi calling late term abortion ‘sacred ground’, drag queens ‘wonderfully creative’, Pres Joe Biden calling limitations to transgender mutilation of kids verging on sin, vowing total war on the right to life in the womb we’ve come to full compliance of Antichrist worship. Any priest, bishop, any churchman whatever rank who encourages that the body and blood of Christ be given them, shouldn’t we assume, incurs equal divine justice?
“Those of you who take Joe’s pronouncements on what is sinful and what is not, please raise your hands.
“You – the girl in the 3rd row – you take them seriously? Oh you just need to go to the loo – go ahead.
“Anyone else?
“I rest my case.”
If nonsense like this weren’t so pathetic, so tragic- it would be funny. And this is The President of the United States spewing this garbage.
Sigh
Quoth the Prophet Tumble-bug Biden: “It’s cruel. We [should] make sure we pass [federal] legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable.”
Just “like we passed on same-sex marriage.” Indeed.