(LifeSiteNews) — A coalition of dissident Catholic religious sisters released a statement Friday supporting the March 31 “Transgender Day of Visibility,” calling for those who identify as “trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive” to be “acknowledged, boldly accepted, and celebrated” by the Church.
In a statement titled “In Solidarity: Vowed Catholic Religious Honor Trans Day Of Visibility,” the Sisters of Saint Joseph U.S. Federation, Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary of-the-Woods and Indiana and Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth JPIC office declared full support of the transgender agenda, claiming to “represent over 6,000 vowed Catholic religious and partners in mission in over 18 states.”
The sisters stated, “As vowed Catholic religious and our partners in mission, we wholeheartedly affirm that transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive individuals are beloved and cherished by God. We mark March 31, International Day of Transgender Visibility, as a time to celebrate, acknowledge, and uplift folks who identify as transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender-expansive. We know our actions and commitments must extend beyond this day’s observance.”
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Using the much-vaunted mantra of inclusion and lamenting “anti-LGBTQ+ legislation” — which serves especially to protect minors from surgical and irreversible mutilations and/or chemical castration through puberty blockers and hormone drugs — the dissident sisters continued, “As members of the body of Christ, we cannot be whole without the full inclusion of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive individuals. At this moment in the United States, transgender people are experiencing harm and erasure due to: the introduction and approval of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across several states, harmful rhetoric from some Christian institutions and their leaders, including the Catholic Church, [and] daily discrimination and violence.”
The sisters went on to employ revolutionary-style language, saying they were called to “dismantle” systems that “reinforce” the “rhetoric” of so-called discrimination against “transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive” persons.
They wrote, “The Gospel call of unifying love compels us to actively interrupt harmful interactions in daily life and dismantle the systems that reinforce this rhetoric and violence in society, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and other folks of color. We will remain oppressors until we — as vowed Catholic religious — acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people in our own congregations. We seek to cultivate a faith community where all, especially our transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive siblings, experience a deep belonging.”
Calling for bold acceptance and celebration of transgender lifestyles and persons, they concluded, “May we act to transform our hearts, our church, our politics, and our country to ensure that the dignity of our trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive siblings are acknowledged, boldly accepted, and celebrated.”
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This is not the first time the Sisters of Saint Joseph have publicly advocated for transgender ideology. After the shooting at a gay bar in Colorado Springs last November, they similarly called for the rejection of all condemnation of LGBTQ+ lifestyles and ideology, declaring, “Language, beliefs, and practices that condemn, reject, target, or blame LGBTQ+ people must be explicitly rejected, particularly by religious leaders and churches.”
The sisters particularly singled out the Catholic Church’s support of laws that run afoul of the LGBT agenda. They stated, “We are called to actively interrupt hateful interactions in daily life and dismantle the systems that reinforce this rhetoric and violence in society, including anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that is sweeping across the country. This includes calling out the Catholic Church’s support and endorsement of such legislation.”
The Sisters of Saint Joseph U.S. Federation also advertises that it is a “proud” endorser of the following pro-LGBT statements: the Tyler Clementi Foundation’s “God is on Your Side,” a statement to LGBT youth (February 2021) endorsed by heterodox Cardinal Robert McElroy, as well as Cardinal Joseph Tobin; heterodox New Ways Ministry’s “We Will Bless Same Gender Couples” (March 2021) and “A Home for All: A Catholic Call for LGBTQ Non-Discrimination” (August 2021). In 2021, New Ways Ministry called on the Vatican to reverse its condemnation of “blessings” for same-sex unions and opposes conservative legislation against LGBT ideology, medical procedures, and school indoctrination.
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The recent scandalous statement of the Sisters of St. Joseph comes as the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, voiced public support for a state bill prohibiting the mutilation and chemical castration of minors through so called “gender-transitioning” surgeries and drugs.
The public position of the Charleston diocese followed a forceful letter issued by the U.S. Bishops’ Conference condemning such surgeries as immoral mutilations of healthy body parts. The U.S. bishops rooted transgender ideology in a dualistic approach to the human person in which the body and soul are taken as two complete natures, allowing for the soul to be in the “wrong” kind of body. The bishops reiterated that the Church has always condemned such dualism, teaching instead that body and soul together make up one nature and are both constitutive of the human person.
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The bishops wrote, “The soul does not come into existence on its own and somehow happen to be in this body, as if it could just as well be in a different body. A soul can never be in another body, much less be in the wrong body. This soul only comes into existence together with this body. What it means to be a human person necessarily includes bodiliness.”
Condemning all medical interventions aimed at “transitioning” a person to the opposite sex as an attempt to alter the order and finality of the human body as determined by God, the bishops stated, “Rather than to repair some defect in the body or to sacrifice a part for the sake of the whole, these interventions are intended to transform the body so as to make it take on as much as possible the form of the opposite sex, contrary to the natural form of the body. They are attempts to alter the fundamental order and finality of the body and to replace it with something else.”
“Such interventions, thus, do not respect the fundamental order of the human person as an intrinsic unity of body and soul, with a body that is sexually differentiated,” the bishops declared. “Bodiliness is a fundamental aspect of human existence, and so is the sexual differentiation of the body.”
The sister’s endorsement of the “Transgender Visibility Day” came as Washington D.C.’s “Trans Day of Vengeance” was canceled in the wake of the tragic grade school shooting that took place in Nashville, Tennessee, in which the shooter identified as “trans” and targeted the Christian school children.
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