Washington D.C., Dec 17, 2019 / 03:06 am (CNA).- It all started with a Twitter rant.
A single Catholic in D.C. (CNA’s Christine Rousselle, to be exact) sounded off in personal disappointment about a speed dating event that she was attending at a local parish.
Per the norm for many things related to Catholic dating, throngs of women quickly signed up, while the event struggled to capture the interest of men, despite the $10 price that included drinks and appetizers.
The tweet spread throughout so-called Catholic Twitter and beyond, and hundreds chimed in.
“What’s wrong with these men? $10 drinks and apps and talking to women and they still won’t show up?” one commenter said. “Seems like a silly event,” said another.
The conversation sparked by the tweet captured more than just one woman’s frustration with a one-time event. Single Catholics bemoaned the many difficulties of modern dating – finding someone with the same beliefs, limited options of single Catholics who live in certain areas, the uneven ratio of Catholic women to men, those who seem forever to be discerning and never committing, and so on.
Catholic-specific online dating options have also, until recently, been quite limited. One or two sites with dial-up era technology, no apps, and high prices remained the only options for years for single Catholics hoping to meet new people, but wanting to avoid the “Netflix and Chill” culture associated with certain secular dating apps.
Times are tough in the Catholic dating world, but there are people who are paying attention – and trying to change the game.
Meet the #CatholicYenta
Emily Zanotti, a married mother of 5-month-old twins and editor for the Daily Wire, is one such person paying attention to the woes of her single sisters and brothers in Christ.
In her personal life, she already boasts several successful matches she’s arranged between friends resulting in multiple marriages and, so far, five babies. She once paid a friend $5 to ask out someone she suggested – they are married now.
“I find matchmaking to be really fun and it’s something that I’ve done for friends and acquaintances for quite a long time,” Zanotti told CNA.
When she saw the speed dating conversation on Twitter, Zanotti somewhat off-handedly offered her matchmaking skills to anyone on Catholic Twitter who wanted to be set up. She asked interested parties to respond to her Tweet or send her a message with some contact information and personal information that she could use to follow up with them and find them a match.
The response, she said, was “overwhelming.”
“By the end of about three days – and this is to some extent thanks to help from the Jennifer Fulwiler Show on Sirius, which I went on after this exploded on Twitter – we had a thousand people sign up for this #CatholicYenta matchmaking service,” Zanotti said.
A yenta is a colloquial term for a Jewish matchmaker (it was popularized by the musical Fiddler on the Roof – the real Yiddish term for matchmaker is ‘shadchanit’). The name #CatholicYenta originally started off as a joke between Zanotti and one of her Jewish friends, who tagged her as the #CatholicYenta when she found out what Zanotti was doing.
“So I was like, you know what? No one owns that domain. Let’s go,” Zanotti said.
Now an official website, Catholics can sign up for the Yenta’s matchmaking services by answering 19 questions, including a question about liturgical preferences, questions about work and pace of life, and questions about family, hobbies and interests.
There’s no algorithm-generated matches here. Zanotti is combing through each one, following up with phone calls with each applicant, and doing what she does best – personally introducing couples whom she thinks would make a good match. She said most of this will be done through email. She’ll even help coordinate the first meet-and-greet for the couple, if necessary.
For good matches, Zanotti said she pays attention to personality traits and senses of humor the most, she said, as well as if they have similar tastes in blogs or podcasts or other media.
“I find that sense of humor is a really, really good way of telling which people go together,” Zanotti said. “If they laugh at the same jokes, if they read some of the same people, I get the sense that they’re ready to be matched together.”
She’s also relying on prayer and the Holy Spirit to help inspire her.
Zanotti said she’s trying to keep the matches confined to relatively the same geographical area, although she is doing some long-distance matching for those who indicated that they would be open to it.
When asked if the gender ratios of her applicants were as skewed as the D.C. speed dating event that sparked all of this, Zanotti said it was actually nearly “an even split” of men and women.
“There’s a lot of men who are very quiet about this. It’s not something that I think they tweet about or say or maybe even tell friends,” she said.
“I think a lot of this has to do with the way dating is right now,” she added. “There’s a lot of emphasis on app dating and hookup culture and so much of it is impersonal. And I think people just responded to the idea that they want a human connection…they want to meet people using that special human touch.”
Zanotti met her husband the old-fashioned way, in person at Ave Maria law school.
“My husband asked me out on MySpace, so that’s how long I’ve been out of the dating pool,” she said.
A lot has changed about dating culture since then. Zanotti said she hopes #CatholicYenta is helping to fill in the gaps where modern dating culture is lacking for Catholics.
Drops in the number of people of faith have alone narrowed people’s options, she said. Catholics are often found in small enclaves throughout the country, and if one doesn’t find a match within one’s limited enclave, it can be really difficult to meet other Catholics.
“I think people who are serious about their faith and serious about values are not particularly served by the options that are out there,” she said. “It is really difficult for Catholics and people of faith to find people who share their values in this dating pool.”
Zanotti has plans for #CatholicYenta’s expansion beyond the questionnaire, she said. She is launching a new, updated website soon, and hopes to expand the site’s services to include dating coaching, prayer groups, counseling options for married couples, and a network of people who are married or religious who want to help single people find each other.
She encouraged Catholics to pray more for their single friends who want to be married.
“To have people praying for Catholic marriages, praying for matches for the people who participate in this…the more prayer we can have, the better,” she said. “In order for Catholicism to grow and flourish, you have to have serious Catholics getting married and having children, and we need to pray for that.”
Catholic Chemistry: An updated look for Catholic online dating
While #CatholicYenta was created specifically in response to the recent Catholic tweet-storm, other initiatives have also been popping up to address the frustrations of Catholics looking for better options in the dating realm.
Chuck Gallucci is another Catholic who noticed that there was something lacking in the dating sphere for those who took their faith seriously.
While he got married in 2015, Gallucci said he had spent years prior to that on Catholic dating websites and grew frustrated with them.
“I always thought, ‘I could make something better than this. I can definitely do something better,’” recalled Gallucci, who is a web developer for Catholic Answers by trade.
“The sites felt like they were stuck in the ‘90s, they weren’t really on par with modern web design. That was a big deal,” he said. “And then there didn’t seem to be much unique about them. It’s just a database of profiles. I get that it’s hard to break out of that, it’s hard to innovate in this space, but I did think that there were some things that can be done.”
Furthermore, he said, “there are many that present themselves as a Catholic dating site but… it’s questionable, and this is so important, this is people’s vocations. And I thought it would be good to have some service that would be conducive to the vocation of married life.”
That’s why Galluci, now a married father of three, started Catholic Chemistry last year. The site has an updated feel and a simple design, and a few funny videos about disastrous dates to pique the interest of potential subscribers.
“It was born out of frustration with the available options, solidarity with my fellow single Catholics and understanding what it’s like, and just my love for web design and web development and knowing I can make something that can be useful to the Catholic community of single people,” he said.
Catholic Chemistry has many of the features of other Catholic dating websites – profiles with basic biographical information, as well as information about personality, hobbies, interests and questions about the Catholic faith.
Some new features, however, include more easily accessible and available chat features that make it easier for users to start conversations with each other.
“I think that’s one of the problems in young adult Catholic communities is a hesitation to start anything, or it’s just hard for people to start a conversation to make connections,” Gallucci said. “So I tried to come up with some features on the website that help singles to make more meaningful connections and make it easier for them to break the ice.”
One of those features is a quiz on the profile called “Which is more you?” Users are given the options between two different items, and they select which speaks to them the most. They might be religious things, like St. Francis or St. Dominic, Gallucci said, or more cultural things like soda or kombucha.
“It gives you a good feel of a more rounded picture of who this person is,” he said.
Moreover, it can be an easy and fun way to break the ice with a new connection, he said. Users can only see answers to “Which is more you” questions on profiles if they have also answered those same questions.
“And so if you’re like, ‘I’m all about kombucha’ and then they answered kombucha, that’s a starting point.”
The site then allows any user to click on the person’s response, which opens a chat window to start a conversation.
“You can say, ‘Hey, I’ve been brewing my own kombucha and I just can’t figure it out. Do you have any tips?’ Something like that,” Gallucci said. Or if there is an image on someone’s profile, a user can click on that image, and a chat will open up with the image and a space for the person’s comment.
“It’s just a way to break the ice,” Gallucci added.
Some dating apps and sites have restrictions on who can initiate conversations, or on how connections are made (i.e. women must send the first message, only two people who have mutually “liked” each other may message, etc.). Gallucci said he considered some of these, but ultimately decided to let any subscribing user be able to initiate a conversation with any other subscribing user.
“I thought that would only put more friction on starting conversations and I didn’t want to have that as a limitation,” he said.
Another unique feature is the search function, Gallucci said. Users can search for other users based on things they have mentioned in their profiles, like St. Therese or skiing. They can also search based on age, location, liturgical preferences, and so on.
“For whatever reason, I haven’t seen that on other sites.” Gallucci said. “It’s a great way to explore, to browse (profiles).”
Gallucci said he tries to make the site feel fun while also encouraging serious discernment of the vocation of marriage.
“The goal of (the site) is ultimately finding someone to marry and start a vocation with, but also not doing that in a way where it takes the fun out of it or becomes too uptight,” he said.
Soon after the launch of the site in 2018, Catholic Chemistry created an app, making them one of the first Catholic dating sites to do so. Since then, other major Catholic dating site players, like Catholic Match and Catholic Singles, have also launched apps.
“Healthy competition breeds innovation, so that’s good,” Gallucci said.
Gallucci said Catholic Chemistry is “growing exponentially, it’s growing really fast,” and he already boasts a marriage of a friend of his who met his spouse through the site and “many, many” other matches made through it.
“One of my coworkers at Catholic Answers was a beta tester for for Catholic Chemistry…and the beta testers who were single, they rolled over when the site went live. So he was on the site, and he ended up meeting his current wife. They just got married in November… I went to their wedding and it was beautiful,” Gallucci said.
Once users have found a match, they can close their accounts and complete an exit quiz about their experience on the site, Gallucci said. He also sends couples materials on discernment to help them in their relationship.
Gallucci added that the best advice he can give single Catholics hoping to marry is to put God first in their relationships.
“In today’s cultural climate, it’s obviously very difficult for a single Catholic to do dating right, to do it the way God wants them to,” he said.
“I know it’s frustrating, at times it feels like they are slim pickings, to find somebody who shares your faith, not just nominally, but who lives it. And there’s so many temptations along the way…the thing is Catholics know deep down that all their pursuits, everything driving them, even their pursuit of a future spouse is ultimately seeking God and pursuing God. If you don’t start there, you’re bound to end up in disaster.”
Reviving a college dating culture
Thomas Smith and Anna Moreland are both professors at Villanova University, an Augustinian school in Pennsylvania.
Smith and Moreland, who are friends as well as colleagues, talk frequently about their teaching experiences with one another, and started to notice several years ago that their students were excelling academically but not necessarily in other areas of adult life.
“I run the honors program at Villanova, and we started noticing several years ago that students were kind of overdeveloped in one facet of their lives, particularly academics, with a very relentless approach to professionalization and work life,” Smith said. “But they weren’t as developed in other areas of their life that are equally important, and romantic life is one of them.”
Students’ lack of knowledge on how to date became immediately apparent to Moreland about 10 years ago in her Introduction to Theology course, where she offered a dating assignment based off the one created by Professor Kerry Cronin of Boston College.
Cronin, whose assignment is now featured in a dating documentary called “The Dating Project,” came up with an assignment for her students to ask someone out on a first date. The rules: They must ask a legitimate romantic interest out on a date – and they must ask in person. The date must be no longer than 60-90 minutes. They should go out to ice cream or coffee or something without drugs or alcohol. You ask, you pay – and a first date should only cost about $10. The only physical contact should be an A-frame hug.
A friend of Cronin’s, Moreland borrowed the assignment for what she thought would be a one-time thing.
“I offered it as an optional assignment instead of their last short paper,” Moreland said. All but one of her students opted for the dating assignment.
“When I read their reflection papers, I was really thrown back on my heels. So much so, I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to do this again,’” she said, and she’s been offering the dating assignment in classes and workshops ever since.
“I was hoping to talk about the Trinity and the Eucharist and in my intro theology class, I literally was not expecting to get into the nuts and bolts of how to date on a college campus. But the students responded so positively,” she said.
One thing that both Moreland and Smith said they started to notice in their students was that many of them were fed up or not interested in participating in the hook-up culture that is popular on college campuses, but they didn’t seem to know any alternative approach to dating and relationships. They found that their students were either hooking up or opting out of romantic relationships entirely – and a majority of them were opting out.
“Hooking up was really the only thing on offer, and not how to break out of that kind of paltry possibility,” Moreland’s students had complained to her.
“And it’s not just dissatisfaction with the hooking up, it’s this epidemic of loneliness that’s starting to blossom,” Smith said. A 2017 survey of roughly 48,000 college students found that 54% of males and 67% of females reported feeling “very lonely” at some point in the past year.
Moreland said she had a student remark at the end of the dating assignment that she planned to use the same strategy to make friends – to ask them to lunch in the cafeteria or to a movie.
“Students have this default of watching Netflix on their leisure time. It’s easy. It doesn’t demand anything of them. They don’t have to become vulnerable to anyone or anything,” Moreland said. “And so they’re overworked and then they binge-watch Netflix. That’s the pattern of their day, quite frankly.”
So Moreand and Smith, along with some other professors at Villanova, teamed up to create an Honors program called “Shaping a Life,” where one-credit courses were offered to teach students about dating and romantic relationships, as well as friendships, free time, professional development, vocations, discernment and more.
When it comes to dating, Smith and Moreland said their work in these classes is a “re-norming of expectations.” They talk about intimacy not just as something physical, but as “knowing and being known, and loving and being loved,” Smith said. They talk about appropriate levels of intimacy, depending on the level of relationship or friendship.
“We’ve got this third option that we’re trying to rehabilitate called dating, and it’s not what you think it is,” Moreland said she tells her students. “It’s not casual sex, it’s casual dating. That takes a lot of work.”
Reviving a sense of true romance and dating is connected to other things that well-formed Catholic adults need, Smith added.
“The loss of a sense of romance in life is part of a larger flattening out of eros, the erotic dimension of love. That’s clearly the kind of love that’s in play when you go out on a romantic date, but it’s connected to all sorts of other phenomena in life that Catholics should be in tune with,” Smith said. “Love of beauty, love of art, music, anything that really takes you out of yourself and invites you to unite with something that you find compelling, or beautiful ideas. These all have this kind of ‘eros’ dimension to them. So we’re inviting them to think about loving a much broader way and I think a much more Catholic way.”
Smith and Moreland are currently working on compiling what they’ve learned through their Shaping a Life program into a book for college students that will serve as a guide to these many facets of adult life. Dating and romance, they said, is just one chapter.
The professors are also not alone among colleges and universities in the country who are noticing a lack of human formation in their students and are trying to address it. Smith said he knows of similar programs at multiple schools, including Valparaiso University, Baylor University, Notre Dame University, University of California at Berkeley, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania that are addressing similar issues with their students.
“These are places around the country that are really trying to think through in a different way what this generation of students needs and trying to get college right, because in a lot of ways colleges are failing in this task of inviting students into adulthood,” Smith said.
Moreland said she has been encouraged by her students’ strong desire for something other than what the hookup culture is offering.
“We have these little successes and one of them was in my office last week,” Moreland said. A student of hers in her Shaping Adult Life class came in, excited to tell her about his first date.
“And he said to me, ‘Dr. Moreland, I did it. I did it last Friday. I saw a girl across the room, we had a connection and I thought if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it now. So I walked up to her, I asked her out for coffee, I asked her for her number, then we went out for coffee on Monday. Then we went for dinner last night.’”
“And he just looked at me and he said, now what do I do?” Moreland said they sat down and came up with a plan for next steps together, including planning around finals week.
“It was like I was his matchmaker,” she said.
Smith said he’s encouraged that so many schools are taking notice of how colleges have failed students in preparing them for dating and other facets of adult life.
“There’s lots of people of goodwill who kind of are waking up and realizing, well, this is not getting done in ways that are really compelling for students,” he said. “The students I have now have this palpable sense that the adult world is not there for them. They really feel like the adult world is not helping them over the threshold to become fully integrated adults. That’s really a shame.”
“But I think it’s an untold story that there’s a lot of good people across the country noticing this and trying to think the problem through.”
[…]
In any case most of the baptised, or those who took vows for the Kingdom rarely get even the Hope for everlasting life God offers to His beloveds in the Paradise, where each man and women enjoy invisible God’s (spousal) Love through opposite sex, who are effectively visible Body of God. Thus how among the n number of ways a sinner can remain in original sin is exposed by this monk and merely display that all humans ending up in eternal death are similarly living up by God’s Fatherly Mercy (not Love), which effectively also nurture potential saints through their life into adults suitable for paradise. May God uses this aspiring person’s efforts to exhibit a miracle there by this person might get a wee hint what God meant when He hints of everlasting bodily life for saints.
The confusion seems to enter into the article about confusion:
(quote) “by allowing a female monk”
There is no such thing as “a female monk”, there is either “a female nun” or more correctly “a nun” or “a male monk” or simply “monk”. Monks mean “man”, “nun” means woman. Hence, a woman cannot be a monk, she can only be a nun – in the Church at least.
Good show.
The fact that the Diocese of Lexington published a statement referring to this individual, a female, as “he” and “Brother” shows where the true confusion lies. The current pontiff’s public declarations of the demonic nature of gender ideology, if not merely a sop thrown to Backwardists, seem worth heeding.
“Risk”?
They succeeded.
I believe what this misguided woman is doing is morally wrong. As a Catholic publication you should know that a diocesan hermit is not a monk. We excuse secular news when they get this stuff wrong but for a Catholic news source one then wonders what else about this story is factual or sensationalized. In other words don’t make it worse than it is and further confuse and already confused Faithful!
It’s a valid question—can a transgender person become a consecrated hermit? Not a question we would have even asked 10 years ago.
He is NOT a monk or member of a specie religious Order while he did receive formation from a Benedictine Abbey. He was NOT a monk of that community! He is a hermit of the Diocese to which he resides and it is that Diocese that he was from that Diocese that received and professed as a hermit. “A hermit is recognized by law as one dedicated to God in consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of the diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels, confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, and observes a proper program of living under his direction. Can. 604 §1.”
HE is a she.
“He” is not a he. “He” is a she. A female, XX chromosomes and all that.
First off, we all have to reference that Christian Matson is a self-professed hermit. A hermit is a person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse. There is a big difference between the type of hermit Ms. Matson professes (work in the arts and to live a life of contemplation in a private hermitage), to that of Saint Benedict who professed his life to the Word of God and Prayer.
I am a Benedictine Oblate in Missouri and we just call this type of discussions as Hog-Wash. I am not ignorant to the spin about Dignitas Infinita and I understand the narrative being argued but this person has done nothing to change or alter her sexuality I find only a mental defect for which we should pray for this person.
No! Webster: A hermit is a person living in solitude as a religious discipline. The only concern would be what dicipline is being applied? Is she doomed for Hell? Can her gender transition be reversed, like a vasectomy? Does her family still love and support her/him? We know that current dogma rejects women from ordination, but a celibate trans Nun?
God raise up all exhiled hermits from the ashes of abnormality.
The Church should not put her imprimatur behind social psychosis.
The greater scandal is generated by Bishop Stowe, a successor of the Apostles, for allowing and promoting this diabolical disorientation.
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” (2 Cor 11:13)
You hit the bullseye, Maggie!
Thank you for the affirmation, DeaconEdwardPeitler. I’d love to hear one of your homilies. I’d be willing to bet you give the kind we sorely need to start hearing again in our parishes.
Maggie, there is one online that a parishioner of a parish I was once a member of put there with my permission. If you Google: “Every day is Newtown in America”, you should be able to access it. God bless.
Deacon Edward, I read your fine homily, and it is indeed the kind we should be hearing more often from our American pulpits! It tackles in a unique way the toughest moral issue of our culture today, which tragically we hear so little about.
(Indeed, we hear the least about the most important and toughest moral issues!)
I urge other readers to google and read “Every Day is Newtown in America” by Deacon Ed Peitler
In the Seattle area the only person in the car was ticketed for driving in the high-occupancy-vehicle lane. With him was his dog. The driver explained to the judge that “my dog identifies as a person.”
It is farce to propose this individual posing as a man “raises the danger of scandal”, it is scandalous. The issue is that the Church is put in the position of supporting the position that rejects God’s creation. She has lived her life denying herself. That which motivates this denial is deeply sad – sad for her and her confusion to live a lie while posing as a hermit.
Those that support her position are unworthy of any position of authority and are in a state of rebellion and apostasy. Either they repent or they should be removed.
Love your neighbor.
That Stowe does not recognize the serious mental disorder going on here is disturbing – as a pastoral care issue. He compounds the pastoral malpractice by affirming it as edifying. I can excuse the confused hermit, but the bishop’s behavior has done far more damage to the Church and society – and struggling gender dysphoric individuals – than the hermit ever could. Stowe is more interested in grand-standing and virtue signaling to the progressive wing than he is in the pastoral care of the hermit and others who are afflicted with this disorder. Shame on Stowe.
Spot on. But in regards to the individual claiming to be a hermit…one does not go looking for the limelight with public declarations while simultaneously declaring their vocation to solitude.
This issue can be resolved in a fairly concise manner:
1. Stop referring to a woman as “he.” She is not a monk.
2. Laicize her immediately and impose harsh discipline on the monastery leaders who supported this fraud.
So much could be said but lets keep it simple.
Bishop Stowe facilitated this conundrum. The lack of prudence exhibited by him in this situation and others is grounds for “reassignment.”
And the individual ostensibly desiring to grow in intimacy with the Lord in “solitude” as a “hermit” has a genius for turning the hermitage into center stage enjoying the limelight.
Clerical incompetency and malicious fraudulence have met.
When do we wake up?
They’re all frauds- the hermit and the hermit’s woke bishop. The hermit should shut up, return to the hermitage and take Stowe with him
The hermit is no hermit and apparently there is no hermitage. The individual need return to the closet and be still. They are in an act of public scandal and scaring the horses.
Can we agree, James, that the ersatz hermit should just shut up?
That Stowe would take this person in, is no suprise, and this person knew this when applying to Stowe to be a recognized hermit.
That neither Stowe or this person have a clue about the true hermit life is no suprise, either…both Stowe’s trumpeting of the existence of the hermit, and this person’s own self-publicity show this only a stunt for both…a hermit leads a hidden life.
My question is also one of finances, and if this person self-supporting, in which case, outside official diocean recognition, they could call themselves a Zen elephant, giraffe, or Catholic hermit to their heart’s content.
But if Stowe is using diocese funding to support his own pro-gay agenda via this person, both should be hung out to dry…
That the article focuses only on experts opining that an officially diocese recognized transexual hermit is a scandal, is like an article focusing on experts telling me that night is dark and here are the assorted grades of dark…..oh, really?
Bishop Stowe has long been a staunch advocate for homosexuality, transgenderism, and many things contrary to the Catholic faith. His churches fly gay pride flags, etc.
He also wades into politics, precisely in the manner you would expect. From America Magazine:
“In a strongly worded newspaper column, a Kentucky bishop urged Catholics to consider the church’s full teaching on life and to resist temptations to align themselves with the “Make America Great Again” movement started by President Trump.”
He was upset that during the March for Life, somebody wore a red MAGA baseball cap.
Bishop Stowe also publicly castigated the young man who the media tried to crucify for “smirking” in the face of a Native American drum beater. That kid later won a 200 million dollar lawsuit against CNN for defaming him. I wonder why the good bishop was not sued as well.
Other Stowe headlines “Bishop John Stowe: LGBTQ community an example of “unselfish love.” Stowe gives the headline address at meetings of James Martin’s “Outreach” organization.
You cannot expect such a bishop to uphold Catholic teaching in any way. After years of telling Catholics to do exactly what Pope Francis says, now he ignores Pope Franci’s latest document.
I have a feeling that this woman is quilty of having committed a grave sin of deception. It’s not clear if this current Bishop was the one who granted her permission to become a hermit or a predecessor, but clearly there was deception. It’s one thing if she was living as a self proclaimed hermit, but quite another if she is indeed a hermit living as a diocesan hermit under the supervision and direction of the bishop. In the former case she could well be a mentally ill person who is living in a delusional world. In the latter she would be a woman who has deliberately deceived a bishop over an extended period of time (it takes a matter of years to achieve this status) in order to become something she wasn’t. This is a sin which must be dealt with. Now that it is a public matter, a very clear public statement from the bishop is needed.
Bishop Stowe’s response is what should be expected of him. Pope Francis described the problem with such bishops a few days ago.
….”This wicked serpent, like an unclean torrent, pours into men of depraved minds and corrupt hearts the poison of his malice, the spirit of lying, impiety and blasphemy, and the deadly breath of impurity. These crafty enemies of mankind have filled to overflowing with gall and wormwood the Church, which is the Bride of the Lamb without spot; they have laid profane hands upon here most sacred treasures. Make haste, therefore, O invincible Prince, to help the people of God against the inroads of the lost spirits and grant us victory. Amen” From the Saint Michael the Archangel prayer. In Deliverance Prayers, Fr Chad Ripperger.
Fairly concise, Fraud? Webster: “Fraud is the wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain”. Laisize her? You could give “her” the maximum. She should be sent to jail. Forget her parents.
Will we ever understand one another? Walk in her/his shoes.
Your are already a pretty bad hermit if you seek some sort of public approval of your lifestyle. Be a child of God or not. This is a mockery.
I once wrote here about my “vision” of the reversed sock i.e. how currently the evil is labouring over the Church trying to “reverse” it so to speak, presenting the wrong side as right etc., something along the lines of Bosch’s paintings. Here I see that “reversed sock” again: the twist is trying to pose as a norm – once this new norm is accepted all the Church must be reversed accordingly.
The story with “a trans-hermit” made me recall another story of so-called “elder-virgin” Dosiphey which happened in 18c. Russia which is the direct opposite to what is being discussed.
Dosipheya, a daughter of very wealthy parents, was brought up in a convent by her grandmother who was a nun. When her grandmother became a hermit, the young woman was taken back home. She did not like being in the world and wanted to be a nun but her parents were adamantly against it, wanting her to marry. She ran away to Moscow with an intention to enter a convent but was recognized so she dressed in a male peasant dress. Because she was tall and somewhat masculine looking, she was accepted to the male monastery as a novice with the name Dosiphey” (a male form of her name). Unfortunately, in a while she was recognized again by some visitors of the monastery so she ran away to Kiev.
There she settled in a cave in a proximity of a male monastery. Everyone thought she was a male ascetic. With years she became known as one who can read hearts and discern the souls and people would stream to the hermit for advice. She spoke to people but never showed her face. Her fame was so big that even the Empress visited her and by her order “Dosiphey”was clothed as a monk (I presume the empress also thought Dosiphea was a man). She became an official hermit in the monastery. At some point Dosiphea was visited by her own sister who did not recognize her and gave her the advice not to look for those who hid themselves for the sake of God.
Her death was holy; she asked forgiveness from each of brethren in the monastery and was found dead the next day kneeling before icons. In her hand was found a note in which she stated that her body is prepared for the burial so it should be buried as it is. She died in her fifties.
She was venerated as the blessed (a monk) by the brethren and many others. When her sister visited the monastery again, she recognized her sister in the portrait of the blessed Dosiphey. This is how her story became known.
This story shed some light on the “reversed sock” of a trans-hermit. Dosiphea, a woman, chose to pose as a man because there was no other way to hide herself and to have safety living in a cave. She lived in a total obscurity, being dead to the world even more than the regular monks.
Seems like she began her career as a hermit by lying about her real sex. Not a good way to start the religious life. Then announces her status which causes further scandal. Shame on the Bishop for acting like all of this is OK.
Ah, these people, they claim to want natural and are hysterical about the way that humans have harmed this poor planet – but no problem disregarding or mutilating the way that God naturally made them.
All the other animals seem to figure this one out, quite naturally!
Bishop John Stowe.
Religion News Service.
No need to read further.
Peace my friends
I have read many comments that condemn this woman and the Bishop for not casting the first stone. John 8:1-11 What did Jesus say: Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” 11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” Adultery v Posing as a male – Again, strong comments here.
Do you even know any folks that are transgender? I worked at the Outpatient Pharmacy of The Christ Hospital for years. We had a Doctor in the Medical Office Building that did gender reassignment procedures. Sorry, I did not know any female transitioning to male patients. I did know many male patients transitioning to female. There was not one of these patients that was doing this because it was a fad or popular, these were people trapped in a male body that did not have one male trait.
This should break your heart not bring out condemnation. Go on, throw the first stone you hypocrites. Maybe you should read Matthew 25:31-46 to find out what it takes to stay out of Hell.
I find your statement to be a good example of the ideology of the “nice party”, in the Church and in the world. Let us establish some clarity here. (And yes, I knew a transsexual, a biological woman who acquired a male body but it does not matter; why will be said later.)
You wrote: “I have read many comments that condemn this woman and the Bishop for not casting the first stone.”
What is “casting first stone”? – It is to punish for a sin. The woman in your example was about to be punished according to the Jewish law. Our Lord did not interfere until those whose aim was to catch Him on a violation of the law, addressed him. He then asked one who has never sinned to throw the first stone, beginning the execution which would lead to death.
Note that Jesus did not say “she did not sin, drop the stones”. Furthermore, he confirmed she sinned via saying “go and sin no more”. Did Jesus “cast the first stone” via saying that she was sinning = saying the truth? Obviously not. Then, analogically, the commentators here are also not casting a stone but are stating the truth, namely that the Church cannot accept untruth i.e. treating a biological woman as a man. The removal of “the female hermit monk” from the male religious organization and putting her into an appropriate one (female or unisex) would not be a punishment but a restoration of the truth.
You asked: “Do you even know any folks that are transgender?”
Your question is not really relevant because here we are discussing a basic (primitive even) objective truth, that a man cannot be a female and vice versa. The fact that some know transgender people and some do not cannot change this truth – it can only influence the degree of compassion for a human suffering – or may not, if the transgender people whom one knows are obnoxious, just it is the case with any kind of people.
The truth is that hormones and surgery cannot make a man into a woman and vice versa because an appearance does not make them such. A woman who had a double mastectomy b.o. of breast cancer does not become a man; a man who lost his penis due to an accident or developed breasts b.o. a hormonal imbalance or medical treatment does not become a woman. From here follows that the true mercy would be to state to the transgenders the truth i.e.:
“No surgery will ever make you a man (or a woman). You will get an artificial body which has to be supported and maintained via various damaging drugs. If now you are a woman who thinks that she is a man trapped in the female body, after the surgeries you will be a woman literally trapped in the fake of the male body – so you are exchanging a real sex/gender and a real body for a fake sex/gender and a fake body. Hence, what if we try first to do thorough psychotherapy and find out what in your psyche makes you feel this way.”
My study of human psychology (including psychoanalysis) enables me to recognize in many transgenders, who seek to change their bodies, the symptoms which are exhibited by people who suffer borderline personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, bulimia/anorexia depression and so on. Very often it is one unhappy boiling mix of pain and self-loathing which simply takes different (available) forms. More often than not this self-loathing stems from early trauma, abuse, toxic family environments and so on – children in such families feel they are not acceptable so they are ready to do anything to be accepted (including self-mutilation, psychological and physical).
My opinion is also informed by the sci-data which shows higher than average incidence of abuse/other troubles in the families of transgenders, and also of emotional incest. I was astonished when one of such people, a biological woman, confessed that although she mentioned anorexia/anxiety, depression etc. and those symptoms were never paid attention to during her interview which led her to mastectomy. “A psychologist” couldn’t care less. Surely, they would say “they wished good to the young woman” (who is now detransitioning). It is well-known now that those who “assess” such people simply usher them towards “a treatment”.
How could it be than that those who say they are so compassionate to the transgenders are in reality do not bother to propose the much less damaging option which will most likely allow them to avoid the surgery, first? – Most likely because they are deluded as a result of believing that a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man. In that, informed by the lie (or a delusion) system of values, those who try to prevent irreversible damage are “unkind” and so on. This is why you see those who hold on to the objective truth “man is man, woman is woman” as “stone-throwers”. Our refusal to accept the lie threatens your “nice” i.e. purely narcissistic, system.