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Lansing diocese adopts gender identity policy consistent with biological sex

January 15, 2021 CNA Daily News 2

CNA Staff, Jan 15, 2021 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Lansing launched Friday a policy on gender identity requiring that its schools, parishes, and charities recognize persons by the biological sex with which they were born.

The Jan. 15 policy aims to ensure “the highest standards of pastoral care for those with gender dysphoria while also ensuring that Catholic entities, such as parishes and schools, have the capability and confidence to safeguard those in their care from contemporary gender ideologies,” according to the diocese’s statement. 

It was developed in response to the Congregation for Catholic Education’s 2019 document Male and Female He Created Them, which “rejected any ‘gender theory’ that denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman.”

The policy makes explicit what is already implicity contained in the diocese’s code of conduct and employee handbook.

“Informed by faith and reason, the Church teaches that our differences as male and female are part of God’s good design in creation, that our bodies – including our sexual identity – are gifts from God, and that we should accept and care for our bodies as they were created,” says Richard Budd, Director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life for the Diocese of Lansing and co-author of the new guidelines.

“Gender dysphoria is a real psychological condition which causes real human suffering that has to be met with genuine compassion, rooted in truth and love, and accompanied by the highest standards of pastoral care,” Budd also says.

“Gender dysphoria” is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as “clinically significant distress or impairment related to a strong desire to be of another gender, which may include desire to change primary and/or secondary sex characteristics.” This desire to change sex and its accompanying distress may be so intense it can lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life.

The diocesan policy means that students and parents will be addressed with pronouns in accord with their biological sex; students will participate in sports and use bathrooms and locker rooms in accord with their biological sex; and Catholic schools will not cooperate in the administration of puberty-blocking or cross-sex hormones.

The diocese encourages counseling for those distressed or confused by their sexual identity, and it expects that its counselors “hold a correct Christian anthropology of the human person and understand and adhere to Catholic teaching.”

According to Budd, “both science and Sacred Scripture concur that the human person is a body-soul union, and the body — created male or female — is a constitutive and integral aspect of the human person and, as such, everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his or her God-given biological sex and the sexuality that corresponds with that gift – only in this way lies a path towards an integral, sustainable and happy life.” 

“Invasive treatments, especially for children, can inflict irreversible physiological damage coupled with long-term psychological, emotional and spiritual damage upon an already vulnerable person,” says Jenny Ingles, Director of Fertility and Life Ministries in the Diocese of Lansing and co-author of the new guidelines.

The diocese’s statement notes that the launching of its policy coincides with the emergence of legal actions brought by adults alleging malpractice by health authorities who, it is claimed, recklessly encouraged them to “transition” as children.

“Our wonderful Catholic teachers are overwhelmingly motivated in all they do by the love of Jesus Christ and they seek to bring that love to the care of their students,” said Tom Maloney, Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Lansing.

“Applying that compassion to new ethical dilemmas such as gender dysphoria can be challenging – that’s why this new diocesan policy on gender identity will help our teachers form our students in truth and love in order to promote authentic happiness and uphold the common good,” he concluded.

With the new policies, the diocese also issued a theological guide, “The Human Person and Gender Dysphoria“, which explains the teachings of the Catholic Church regarding human anthropology, the human person, and the pastoral challenges posed by transgender ideology.


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Breaking: March for Life 2021 goes virtual

January 15, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Jan 15, 2021 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- The 2021 March for Life will take place virtually, organizers announced Friday.

The March for Life Education and Defense Fund, the organization behind the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., said… […]

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US bishops disagree with designation of Cuba as terrorism sponsor

January 14, 2021 CNA Daily News 7

CNA Staff, Jan 14, 2021 / 06:29 pm (CNA).- The US bishops’ chair for international justice and peace has expressed his disagreement with the State Department’s return of Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The decision was based in part on Cuba’s provision of haven to Colombian rebel leaders and fugitives from US justice, as well as Cuba’s support of Nicolas Maduro, the disputed president of Venezuela, who is not recognized by the US.

“As Chairman of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace, I would like to express my profound disagreement with Secretary Pompeo’s decision to add Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism,” Bishop David Malloy of Rockford said Jan. 12.

“As our committee has said many times, we need more relations between the United States and Cuba, not less, in order to construct mutually beneficial trade, cultural, and scientific ties that will yield a lasting prosperity for both our nations. I pray that we never tire of working towards these goals and that both sides recognize the need for friendship and collaboration,” he stated.

“For decades, in conjunction with the Holy See and the majority of the international community, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has urged collaboration and mutually beneficial relations between the United States and Cuba, as well as the full lifting of the economic embargo against the island nation.”

In announcing the designation of Cuba Jan. 11, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it has provided “support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists.”

He cited Cuba’s refusal to extradite 10 leaders of a Colombian rebel group which bombed a police academy in January 2019, and its harboring of at least three US fugitives.

The Secretary of State noted that by May 2020 the State Department had certified Cuba as not cooperating fully with US counterterrorism efforts.

Pompeo added that “the Cuban intelligence and security apparatus has infiltrated Venezuela’s security and military forces, assisting Nicholas [sic] Maduro to maintain his stranglehold over his people while allowing terrorist organizations to operate. The Cuban government’s support for FARC dissidents and the ELN continues beyond Cuba’s borders as well, and the regime’s support of Maduro has created a permissive environment for international terrorists to live and thrive within Venezuela.”

Cuba’s status as a state sponsor of terror “subjects Cuba to sanctions that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with Cuba, restricts U.S. foreign assistance, bans defense exports and sales, and imposes certain controls on exports of dual use items,” Pompeo said.

Cuba had been removed from the list in 2015 by the Obama administration; it had first been placed there in 1982 under Ronald Reagan.

After Sudan was recently removed, only three other countries are included on the list of a state sponsor of terrorism: North Korea, Syria, and Iran.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned the U.S. action in a tweet on Monday, calling it “hypocritical and cynical” and characterizing it as “political opportunism”.


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North Dakota bill would force priests to violate confession seal in abuse cases

January 13, 2021 CNA Daily News 5

Denver Newsroom, Jan 13, 2021 / 09:01 pm (CNA).- Three North Dakota state legislators introduced a bill this week that would oblige Catholic priests to violate the seal of confession in cases of confirmed or suspected child abuse, on penalty of imprisonment or heavy fines.

The bill was introduced Jan. 12 by state senators Judy Lee (R), Kathy Hogan (D), and Curt Kreun (R), and state representatives Mike Brandenburg (R) and Mary Schneider (D).

The current mandatory reporting law in North Dakota states that clergy are considered mandatory reporters of known or suspected child abuse, except in cases when “the knowledge or suspicion is derived from information received in the capacity of spiritual adviser”, such as in the confessional.

The bill, SB 2180, would amend that law to abolish this exception. If passed, priests who would fail to report known or suspected child abuse, even if revealed in the confessional, would be considered guilty of a Class B misdemeanor and face 30 days in jail or fines up to $1,500 or both.

Priests are bound by canon law, deriving from divine law, to keep the contents of a confession confidential, and are not even allowed to reveal whether or not a confession took place. The Code of Canon Law states that “the sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”

Priests cannot violate the seal even under threat of imprisonment or civil penalty, and can incur a latae sententiae excommunication if they do. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1467, explains the Church’s teaching on the seal of confession:

“Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives.” Christopher Dodson, the executive director and general counsel for the North Dakota Catholic Conference, told CNA that he was “surprised and greatly concerned about the bill, because it would infringe upon a person’s privacy and religious counseling and confession, not just for Catholics, but for everyone.” “In the United States, we expect to exercise our religion, including going to confession and having spiritual counseling, without the government invading our privacy,” he said. Dodson said that the bill was especially surprising because it was introduced a week after the conclusion of an 18 month long investigation by the state on child sexual abuse by clergy in North Dakota’s two dioceses, which found that all but one accusation of abuse by priests in the diocese had already been reported. The state identified the case of one additional priest who had been accused of abuse in the 1970s, and was not on the initial list because he was not a diocesan priest.
“The Catholic Church, including the dioceses of Fargo and Bismarck here in North Dakota, have gone to great strides to create safe environments (for children),” he said.

“The Attorney General in North Dakota just concluded an 18-month investigation of all the diocesan files and did not find anything of concern and nothing that hadn’t already been reported by the two dioceses. And most of those cases of priests with sufficient allegations against them happened a long time ago. That’s why we say this bill comes as a surprise.” Dodson added that there is “no evidence” that the proposed law would prevent “a single case” of child abuse, and instead it would likely dissuade some Catholics from exercising their religious freedoms, which should include going to confession and having that confession kept confidential. Lee declined to comment to CNA about the bill, while senators Hogan and Kreun could not be reached by press time.
The issue of the sacramental seal in cases of child abuse is one that has arisen several times in recent years. A similar bill that would have forced priests to violate the seal was introduced in California, and then dropped in 2019, out of concerns for religious liberty and problems of enforcement. In 2016, a Louisiana state appeals court upheld a priest’s right to uphold the sacramental seal of confession in an abuse lawsuit.

Several Australian states, including Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory, have already adopted laws forcing priests to violate the confessional seal, following recommendations made by the Royal Commission on clergy sex abuse. However, bishops and priests in those states have said they plan on defying the law and upholding the seal regardless.


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