In this raw, emotionally overwrought moment in our public life, few topics generate more passion than gender ideology and the associated practice of gender “transition.” Several Catholic leaders have tried to address the ideology and the practice calmly, informed by science, philosophy, theology, and pastoral experience.
The most recent is Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of “Toledo in America,” as the Vatican’s Annuario Pontificio designates the Ohio diocese centered on the Glass City.
I’m perhaps a suspect witness in the case of Bishop Thomas, as we’ve been friends for almost thirty years. We met when then-Monsignor Thomas was a Vatican official of the then-Congregation for Bishops and serving as a spiritual director at the North American College, my Roman home when I was preparing Witness to Hope, the first volume of my John Paul II biography. No Philadelphia native of my previous acquaintance more thoroughly falsified the smackdown of Philly as the “City of Brotherly Shove.”
Msgr. Thomas and I often sat together during Evening Prayer at the College, two former choir boys enjoying hymn singing and chant, perhaps recalling the innocent days when some notes (like the murderous high B-flat in Bruckner’s Ecce Sacerdos Magnus) weren’t so difficult to reach. Msgr. Thomas also paved the way for me to meet with his boss, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, who told me that, when he was administering the oath of secrecy to new members of his congregational staff, he gave them a picture of John Paul II collapsing into the arms of his secretary after being shot on May 13, 1981: a reminder that helping the Church find good bishops is a serious business, as the man chosen might be called to give his life for his flock. In good times and trying times, Msgr. Thomas was always a consummate gentleman, a faithful friend, and a happy, holy priest.
These qualities are fully on display in The Body Reveals the Person: A Catholic Response to the Challenges of Gender Ideology, which Bishop Thomas released in August. This thoughtful, beautifully illustrated, and thoroughly documented text should be read in full—and that can be done in a half-hour or forty-five minutes.
In doing so, parents, ministers of the Gospel, doctors, mental health professionals, teachers, academic administrators, and public officials will meet that precious rarity in American life today: an adult voice that marries conviction to compassion in response to suffering and distress. The character of the Response’s author is well displayed in its opening paragraph:
First and foremost, I wish to express my special pastoral concern for those who suffer from gender confusion. I offer to you, your families and friends, and to all who are concerned with your welfare, the Church’s guidance on the many vexing questions that arise in this difficult area.
Although the guidance that follows is meant to clarify important theological points about the nature of gender, it is intended primarily as pastoral help from the heart of the Church, fundamental for our understanding of and response to the challenges of gender ideology. Just as a good mother loves her children wholeheartedly, our mother Church loves her children with all her heart. She speaks words of comfort to them and tries to relieve as much as possible their heavy burdens. But her guidance would not be truly loving if she failed to speak with utmost honesty, even when that guidance runs contrary to some of the assumptions of our contemporary culture or conflicts with feelings experienced by some who struggle with issues of gender. And so, I humbly ask your sincere openness as I speak to you heart to heart.
In what follows, Bishop Thomas does not hesitate to tell two important truths.
First, gender ideology proposes a false idea of our humanity: one that denies the biblical truth about us, reduces us to mere bundles of morally equal desires, and does serious damage to individuals and society.
Second, gender dysphoria causes real suffering, but there is no clinical evidence that “transitioning” yields long-term mental health benefits.
Those truths are told in love, however, not used as weapons to condemn individuals who need genuine care rather than technological quick fixes that fix nothing and often make matters worse.
The corruptions that gender ideology has wrought in medicine are ably described by America’s most distinguished psychiatrist, Dr. Paul McHugh, in a recent “Beyond Gender” video podcast that nicely complements Bishop Thomas’s excellent Response. Read Bishop Thomas, watch Dr. McHugh, and meet two Catholics, a pastor and a scientist, who are voices of sanity and charity, men of faith and reason of whom the Church can be very proud.
(George Weigel’s column ‘The Catholic Difference’ is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.)
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Very simply put, there are ONLY two sexes – male and female – distinguishable by their unique DNA. Nothing more need be added.
Excellent statement Deacon. My question is who is the intended audience for this document, that Mr. Weigel says can take up to 45 minutes to read. I like reading religious documents, articles, publications, and it is obvious that commenters on this site do also. But, we are not typical Catholics in that regard.
From a Bishop, I would think that a shorter document focused on the morality of the whole transgender issue might have a wider reading.
In the past we read about wealthy older men having designer wives. I now read about women having designer trans children. Very sad.
Crusader: I have come to the conclusion (I am a retired psychologist) that there are no sexually children disordered. There is only inadequate/ absent/ disordered parenting and/or fractured families. Unless a child has a demonstrable medical/biological anomaly, you can safely attribute the myriad problems evinced by the youth in our society to the so-called adults responsible for their development.
Well put. I would only add that no sane Catholic needs to read a book to know that cutting off your body parts, sleeping with somebody of the same gender, or pretending to be a different gender is crazy and/or immoral.
To spend time addressing the fruit-loop arguments of the lunatics gives them dignity. Just sayin’
I was hoping for an intelligent argument to be made by a member of the Church. Instead I get the same old nonsense. The Bishop’s statements are outright false. There is no gender ideology. There are people who are born with gender dysphoria. They know at about it at an early age. The one true statement was the real suffering caused by untreated gender dysphoria. Then the whopper of them all. That there is no clinical evidence showing transitioning works. Nice touch with the quotation marks, by the way. Multiple studies show satisfaction with gender affirming care around 97%. Every medical group approves of this care. It is cruel to deny this care. It’s also unbiblical. Genesis is not a text book, you know that, and Jesus says to accept the eunuchs. Also, Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch.The Catholic Church is denying science and being cruel to marginalized people. Fortunately, we don’t have to listen to an old Bishop from Toledo.
Born-so dysphoria would be a feature in original sin and concupiscence affecting everyone in different ways and intensities.
It would affect sexuality alone, it would affect any dimension of personal or social or spiritual experience.
On the human level the coddling and promoting of abnormality and deviancy mount up to cruelties and crimes. “Affirming” them is not encouragement it is incitement.
On the human level there are right and compassionate ways to get after those problems before they arise to crime and subversion and unmanageable conflict.
Supernaturally, the Church is not being cruel to anyone by staking out where the evils are, how temptation comes into play and when sin would lie.
The priest attempting to “bless the couple” in a chosen aberrant set-up complex would be imparting the curse he brought on himself onto those persons.
The eunuch sought out baptism after the Philip brought matters to light. Many now in fact refusing the light, are demanding protection for their polarizations.
Paula Farina: Fortunately, we don’t have to listen to you. Because there were allusions to perverse sexuality in the Bible doesn’t declare them normative. The problem is we have too many people ingesting estrogen like they were M&Ms.
No Redux we have to listen in order to respond well when necessary and as far as possible try to help.
Paula, I couldn’t agree more with you.
From the moment JP2 was mentioned, I knew this was going nowhere. It’s time that the Roman Catholic Church stepped into the 21st Century and embraced actual scientific research and knowledge. The amount of vitriol and misinformation regurgitated by the people who don’t understand even basic high school biology is staggering and does no service to humanity or preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paula, I don’t believe that about “Multiple studies have shown…”. Unfortunately, politics and ideology have so infected medicine and science that we can’t believe or trust what their results are any longer. I could also show you studies that show how harmful transgender medicine is to young people in terms of outcomes.
In Bishop Thomas’ essay, a key line is this:
“In fact, increasingly young men and women who have detransitioned admit that their dysphoria began or became worse only after they decided they were “trans” and began to obsess about “passing” as the opposite sex.38 Many had serious pre-existing conditions or co-morbidities that caused distress and suffering even aside from distress about their bodies. In fact these detransitioners realize that they needed psychotherapy and instead were offered medically assisted self harm.”
Three points:
FIRST, as a possible footnote, because not yet mentioned, might consider the rare cases of biological confusion (not disruptions due to random sexual experimentation, peer or cultural misdirection, or transitory infantile whim) possibly caused by the intervention of Endocrine Disruptive Chemicals (EDCs) in the preborn child (regardless of chromosomes). The scientific literature explores how EDCs can obstruct the developing brain from conforming itself to the weeks-earlier sexual differentiation of the body. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.4137/EHI.S39825
SECOND, writing here as simply a broad reader—not a credentialed professional of any sort, if and when such rare cases are real, then we face the specter that preventable ecological side effects of our chemical/economy damage not only our global amniotic sac (the cluttered message of Laudato Si), but also the fetus within the mother’s biological amniotic sac. How, then, does society also protect mothers from ubiquitous EDCs?
THIRD, the Church’s moral message permits biological correctives, but not mutilation and the marketing of gender ideology. Further, the protection of sexual activity within the marriage of one man with one woman applies to all. And about which, somewhere in “Witness to Hope” Weigel anticipates the “radioactive power” of the Theology of the Body at some point in the 21st Century. Brilliant phrase! At this darkening hour of technocracy, we look forward to such a cultural/moral and re-humanizing transformation…
Peter, my good man, you lost me at “38”. 😰
Good catch. 38 is a numbered footnote in the text.
This article beautifully captures the blend of faith and reason in addressing complex issues like gender ideology. Bishop Thomass message is both compassionate and firm, offering a much-needed voice of clarity and conviction. Highly insightful!SunPerp
My best sense is that the theme of “emotionally overwrought” is thoroughly TONE DEAF, in light of the horrific human surgical and chemical experiments on young people being monetized by the US medical and legal and university establishment.
The moment calls for heroic public defense of the young and vociferous public condemnation and confrontation against the entrenched medical and legal and university establishment.
This is not a time to feel good that we have quiet experts ready to console young men and women after they are fed to the wolves to suffer the surgical and chemical and psychological ravages of the abusive medical and legal and university establishment.
We may not be interested in having to fight against the evils of the entrenched medical and legal and university establishment, but THEY are very interested in fighting against our young people, and their parents and grandparents.
We need to take a stand, not congratulate ourselves on our personal sense of rectitude.
The whole story of The Flood and Noah is grounded in the natural, male and female, even the animals. Of course this was a very, very long time before Plato.
The deeper aspect to the story is God’s predilection for man as he is called to be, before God; and woman as she is called to be, before God.
Among other things, Bishop Thomas discusses the intellectualization of identity apart from the reality of one’s body, the problem of concupiscence and the social pressures mounting up that are forcing a proposed normalization of abnormality while “affirming” those who are in gender self-destruction.
The further aspect to the account of The Flood is that God can abandon man to the consequences of his perversity and persistence.
Being a Catholic High School teacher, I see the effects of gender ideology on students on a daily basis. Today’s youth need to be shown the beauty and wisdom of objective reality, as well as the beauty and wisdom of revealed Truth. The insidiousness of subjectivity is destroying minds and bodies. The truth is the truth no matter what anyone says. The agenda-driven elite should recognize that they are pandering to the trans social contagion, which is a very lucrative business. Legal child genital mutilation must end. God created us male and female. Sexual identity is binary, no matter what anyone says. If one can understand the “lock-and-key” concept, one can understand the complementarity of the two sexes. Let us combat the “dictatorship of relativism”, to paraphrase Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, by using our God-given talents, such as writing, to spread the truth.
God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. There are only two sexes male and female. We live in a world full of confusion. Good is seen as evil and evil is seen as good. God is good and the devil is evil. This is a titanic spiritual war where all of God’s truths are being challenge by the evil one and his minions. But we know in the end our good God will end all this confusion at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ King of Kings Lord of Lords. The truth will set you free. Be not afraid!
Is the problem in the head or the body? Which to fix?
Which do you think Brother Jacques?
Unless a child is born with congenital anomalies there’s nothing to fix in a healthy body. And a simple DNA test will almost always reveal one’s true gender.
I was raised Catholic. Left because it isn’t true.
It can still be relevant if it embraces kindness, understanding and rejects the primitive dogma and the lies necessary to keep the con game going.
Many to most Catholic priests are gay. In parts of the world it is a refuge. A safe harbor when local cultures threaten such people. Not a choice. Just Nature. So sad they fear being outed that they can not support others like them. Shameful actually.
You will erase this. Your belief can not withstand scrutiny. I get it.
Just remember humans belong to groups for social reasons.
Even hate groups.
Yet in 2025 many are leaving Christianinity because of the hate targeted at LGBTQ.
Kids know better today. Not all.
Bigotry is taught.
Racism is taught.
Misogyny is taught.
You quoted a psychologist?
Psychology and cognitive science understand where your beliefs come from. Not your choice actually to be fair. A discussion for another day.
Be kind.
“Be kind.”
Why? On what objective basis? For what ultimate purpose?
God made us all.
Absolutely. And He created us male and female.
There are people born in the wrong sex body. It’s that simple. They’re not mentally ill. They’re just trans. It’s amazing how religion has turned a biological fact into a political theological moral argument. It’s like arguing that race is a moral issue. They’re literally turning gender into a moral issue. It’s one reason why religion is dying. It no longer serves the people. It’s ignorant. I don’t know else to say it.
“It’s amazing how religion has turned a biological fact into a political theological moral argument.”
This isn’t about “religion”, but about facts: 1) men and women have different chromosomes (XX and XY) and different reproductive capacities (a man impregnates; a woman is impregnated, etc); 2) transgenderism has not scientific fact but is an very subject ideology based on amorphous and constantly changing notions of “gender” that have no basis in scientific fact (as opposed to scientistic fantasies); and, 3) the theological beliefs of the Catholic Church align perfectly well with science whereas the rootless claims of transinsanity do not at all.
It’s that simple.
Well said.
XX vs. XY DNA isn’t in the Catechism as far as I know but it is in biology & medical textbooks.
Both “Race” & “Trans” are social, unscientific constructs. Neither has any scientific base.
Slice and dice almost never is the answer.
Small offering.
Dysphoria and polarization are two wrong things being used to polarize, dehumanize and radicalize. Dysphoria, whether to do with “gender” or “sexuality” or “diet” or “being suicidal” -dysphoria is an abnormality that needs rectifying. The instability involves being unable to be decisive as well as ending up being decisive into wrong things including habitualizing dysphoria. Whether you trip into it after being born or were born so or were conceived so, would matter in discovering the extents of the problems and their particular needs.
Polarization is what is happening through those intent on promoting and demanding abnormality and deviancy be made a culture and be forced on as “normal”, colluding with the like-minded and those ailing in dysphoria to “demonstrate new forms of rights” and to victimize anyone who would call that out for what it is, false and abusive -and malicious when it is malicious.
‘ The text says, “A man had two sons.” Why emphasize this? Because it is too easy for us to try to sever the link we have with one another. We divide, but God unites: He loved them both; he spoke to them and called them his sons.
A second “sin of the pious” is leaping to the conclusion that someone is irredeemably lost.
Rather than going out and working among them to preach the word and to teach the observance of the Law, many scribes and Pharisees simply labeled the crowds “sinners” and dismissed them as lost. ‘
https://www.ncregister.com/features/come-monday-what-happens
Didn’t Origen cut off body part to control dysphoria, orient desire and settle disposition?