(LifeSiteNews) – Australia’s Catholic bishops have issued new guidance on transgender issues for Catholic schools, promoting a change of “gender,” and unisex toilets along with advice to use students’ “preferred name” and pronouns, while also noting that gender ideology is “inconsistent” with Christianity.
Entitled “Created and Loved: A guide for Catholic schools on identity and gender,” the guidelines were drawn up in response “to the individual social and pastoral needs of students,” according to a press release.
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ACBA) 12-page document addresses issues such as “gender” transition, the use of a student’s preferred “name, identity,” and pronouns, and bathrooms for students of the opposite sex.
Archbishop Peter A Comensoli, chair of the Bishops Commission for Life, Family and Public Engagement, said that the document was based on the principle that “each person is created in the image and likeness of God, and is loved by God.”
Moderate stance on gender ideology promotion
The bishops wrote that Catholic schools must resist the “the incursion of political lobbying, ideological postures, organisations and movements at odds with the school’s mission, along with their language and symbols.” School principals must sometimes “respectfully decline” for such groups to be involved with the school’s life, the bishops wrote.
The bishops further noted that the “popular rhetoric around gender variance” accepts “perceptions of sex and gender that are inconsistent with a Christian understanding.”
Liberal bishops around the world continue promoting heterodox views on homosexuality, female priests, divorce, contraception, and more — advancing anti-Catholic positions that jeopardize the salvation of souls.
Such bishops often sideline, ignore and even persecute traditional Catholics who simply ask that the Faith be preserved and passed on to their children.
But traditional Catholics cannot be silenced any longer, which is why we are uniting in this international boycott of modernist bishops and dioceses until the deposit of Faith is upheld by the hierarchy again.
SIGN: We will not fund modernist bishops or priests who undermine the Catholic Faith, but rather direct our contributions towards faithful clergy and orders that work for the salvation of souls.
There are countless examples of bishops working against Christ's Church in calling for divine law to be ignored in favor of sexual, doctrinal and liturgical deviancy, even trying to clamp down on Catholics who practise the Faith.
Just last year, Cardinal Cupich banned traditional prayers after Mass, and more recently has curtailed the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese.
Cardinal Cupich has banned the Hail Mary and St Michael Prayer after Mass
— Nick Donnelly (@ProtecttheFaith) August 27, 2021
Who but a devil would ban these prayers after Mass
The attack on the Faith is out in the open, with modernist bishops causing scandal in countless ways:
- Shutting down the Latin Mass in numerous parishes
- Rejecting the Church's teaching on sodomy
- Ignoring Vatican cover-ups of abuse by fellow bishops
- Celebrating LGBT Masses
- And so much more!
We have seen enough. Now is the time to show true Catholic unity against those who undermine the Faith - do not be bullied into submission by these men who would disfigure Christ's Church.
JOIN THE BOYCOTT & SHARE! Tell everyone you know to STOP giving money to bishops who attack the Catholic Faith.
"We therefore commit to a financial boycott of modernist bishops until the hierarchy resolves to uphold the entire deposit of Faith."
If the bishops refuse to uphold and protect the teaching of Christ's Bride, the Catholic Church, then we must refuse to support them until they repent.
Thank you
P.S. — Demanding that liberal bishops be held to account through financial boycott will help save the Church from doctrinal and pastoral ruin. This is the first step in restoring the Faith for future generations. Our time is now, so please join us by signing today!
Photos: Pope Francis. Flickr. Long Thiên; Cardinal Cupich. Flickr. Goat_Girl; Collection Plate: Lisa F. Young/Shutterstock
“These recent social changes in definition and language are in conflict with the Catholic understanding of Creation, in which every person is created good and is loved unconditionally as they are,” continued the policy.
However, the policy did not denounce these perceptions in themselves, but only described them as different to the “Christian understanding.”
“There needs to be awareness of the unique needs of the gender variant student,” read the policy, “thus providing appropriate bathroom and sleeping arrangements where all students feel safe and supported.”
Gender can ‘change over time’
However, while seeming to initially moderately warn of certain elements of the transgender movement, the bishops’ policy then proceeded to align itself with fundamental aspects of the movement.
The policy stated that “individuals experience and express their biological sex—their masculinity and femininity—in a wide range of ways.”
“This sense of one’s own sex is often referred to as one’s gender,” continued the bishops, adding that it can be “influenced by a range of early experiences and expectations in the family and at school, on social media and in the wider culture and society.”
In this sense, gender can also change over time and vary both between individuals and across different cultures. Rigid cultural stereotypes of masculinity and femininity are thus unfortunate and undesirable because they can create unreasonable pressure on children to present.
Bathroom and uniform policy
In order to “alleviate anxieties” and increase the “access and safety options of vulnerable students,” the policy proposed new bathrooms in schools. They would be comprised of “a unisex toilet or change room area or creating a bathroom space that is private and not aligned to biological sex.”
Additionally, the policy suggests that “offering flexibility with uniform expectations, would cater to the diversity of the student body,” in a move which appears to align with the transgender movement’s push for a “gender neutral” dress code.
Such an alignment with the non-Christian transgender movement is also seen in the policy’s coverage of school camps or various events, as the policy calls for “awareness of the unique needs of the gender variant student, thus providing appropriate bathroom and sleeping arrangements where all students feel safe and supported.”
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LifeSiteNews contacted the ACBC seeking further comments on the policy, highlighting the policy’s statement that “gender can also change over time.” No response was received by time of publication.
LifeSite also contacted the Vice-President of the ACBC, Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, known formerly for his conservative and pro-life views, but who has since supported the abortion-tainted COVID injections. However, LifeSite was told that since the policy was an ACBC project, any questions must be directed to the bishops’ conference.
In contrast to the ACBC’s policy, Bishop Donald DeGrood of Sioux Falls in the U.S. recently warned against such aspects. Arguing against supporting individuals in transgender beliefs, DeGrood wrote “when a person experiences same-sex attraction or some form of gender dysphoria, such struggles do not change the biological fact of how God created that person, and it would be untruthful for the Catholic Church or our Catholic schools to pretend otherwise.”
READ: Australian bishops’ Conference secretary: Catholics can become Freemasons ‘with no penalty’