‘God is trans’ exhibit at Catholic church removed after New York archdiocese raises concerns

 

The Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan hosted an exhibit titled “God is Trans.” / Beyond My Ken|Wikipedia|GFDL

Boston, Mass., May 15, 2023 / 12:04 pm (CNA).

An art exhibit titled “God is Trans” which was displayed at a New York City Catholic church has reportedly been removed.

The exhibit, which “maps the queer spiritual journey” and claims that “there is no devil,” has been pulled following complaints from parishioners and “concern” expressed to the Paulist Fathers-run church by the Archdiocese of New York.

The full name of the exhibit at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan is “God is Trans: A Queer Spiritual Journey.” Although it’s unclear when the exhibit first was put on display, the New York Post reported that it was “new” in its May 7 report.

The “God is Trans” exhibit by artist Adah Unachukwu “maps the queer spiritual journey by three significant points: Sacrifice, Identity, and Communion,” according to a description of the artwork, published by the New York Post.

“The painting Sacrifice and its complementarity act in the film speak to the need to shed an old life and personhood in order to be able to focus on your spiritual need. There is no devil; just past selves,” the description said.

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told CNA Monday that the archdiocese only became aware of the exhibit through media reports.

“We expressed our concern about the exhibit to the parish,” he said.

CNA asked Zwilling to confirm the report, made by Fox News Digital, that the exhibit had been taken down, but he referred questions about the status of the display to the parish.

The parish did not immediately respond to CNA’s request for comment.

One parishioner at the church told the New York Post that “It seems like they are trying to force the agenda on others.”

“Also, when a friend asked a priest about this they didn’t answer. You can’t put this out on the altar and then hide,” the parishioner said.

The Post’s report included parishioners who both supported and opposed the exhibit.

The church runs a ministry called “Out at St. Paul,” which the parish’s website says is “our ministry and outreach to the Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, and Queer community.” The ministry has a website and a Facebook page.

In one Facebook post on March 3, 2022, the ministry celebrated International Transgender Day of Visibility and said it “intends to host events that will feature panel discussions on trans-affirming theology and health care very soon.”


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Catholic News Agency 12279 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

4 Comments

  1. “God is trans”

    Just when I finally believe that people can’t get any dumber – they prove me wrong.

    Sigh

  2. Well, that’s a good start. Now, when is the Archdiocese of New York going to address the elephant in the room by the name of James Martin? Just curious.

  3. The original Paulist primary mission was something about conversion of the American people and society. Inspection of websites shows that this mission has morphed into the ideology of branding distinctions as polarities which must be hammer flat.

    No longer “outreach,” but something else. Not conversion, but convergence. How to reconcile such porridge with the recent remarks of Pope Francis:

    “Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women. Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations […] 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.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253845/pope-francis-gender-ideology-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-ideological-colonizations-today

    Aren’t human nature and the human vocation giftedly analogous of the divine nature? The Triune oneness differentiated as the distinct but united Father, Son and Holy Spirit? But now, by the Paulist oracle, God is made in the image of colonizizing anti-pronouns; not mankind in the image of a Triune God.

    Is the apparent Paulist ideology—like other gnostic heresies—to sequence even the eternal God into temporal periods? But now less historical than disintegrated, individualized and subjective? Not Joaquim of Fiore’s periodized Age of the Father (the Old Testament), then the Age of Christ up until the 12th-century Joaquim of Fiore, and then (in his deconstruction) the flighty Age of the Holy Spirit!

    So, today, the individualized and subjective age of shedding former private identities, to emerge transgender—not beautifully as a flighty butterfly…
    but as a Butt or Fly!

  4. I am paraphrasing here a small tale told to me by a regular commentor on this site. There was once a young prince who was about to be crowned the king of a realm that was experiencing the chaos of a country that had declined into decadence. One of the old advisors of the court asked the young prince what he was going to do to repair the realm. The young prince answered simply, “I will restore the meaning of words.”

    This seems to me to be a tale of great significance for our own mad times. We live in a time and a culture where words are being invented every day with the demonic intention of neutering all meaning into a disordered, relativistic, meaning-less mush.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*