(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington, blasted the rise of LGBT ideology in Catholic education, calling it “tragic and sinful” in an interview with the National Catholic Register.
Bishop Daly, the chairman of Catholic Education Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), condemned the erasure of parents’ rights at public schools in comments to the Register at the USCCB’s fall meeting in November.
He also noted that transgender ideology has become increasingly prevalent in Catholic schools and that some are even allowing students to “pick your own pronouns” under the pretense of “being affirming and welcoming.”
Gender ideology should have “no place” in schools, Bishop Daly told the Register, adding that it is particularly “tragic and sinful” when it permeates Catholic higher education institutions.
The Washington bishop addressed increasing LGBT identification among youth and said he believes that social media plays a “significant part” in the growth of gender confusion.
He linked the affirmation of gender ideology to “misplaced compassion,” invoking St. John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae. Such affirmation leads children to become “the modern orphans of society,” who are “experimented upon” by “adults who really do not have the best interests of young people at heart,” Bishop Daly lamented.
The prelate also commended recent catecheses on gender published by Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, according to the Register.
READ: ‘No one is transgender’ declares U.S. bishop in new diocesan catechetical aid
Bishop Daly’s remarks align with similar comments from other orthodox bishops, including Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who recently described transgender ideology as “self-mutilation of mind, soul, and body” and warned that promoting it is “nothing less than a serious sin against the well-being and salvation of children and young people.” Archbishop Emeritus Charles Chaput of Philadelphia last year decried transgenderism as “the final rebellion against God.”
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco has also condemned “transgender” experimentation on children as “terrible” and an affront to the “created order.”
The U.S. bishops’ fall meeting saw the election of several bishops who uphold fundamental Catholic teaching to leadership positions, including newly-elected USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio and Bishop Thomas Paprocki, who now heads the conference’s committee on church governance.