Illinois bishop speaks on transgenderism

Matt C. Abbott
May 31, 2016
Reproduced with Permission
RenewAmerica

Kudos to Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, one of the relatively few American bishops willing to speak out on cultural hot-button issues besides immigration.

Bishop Paprocki asserts (excerpted; click here to read his commentary in its entirety):

Once again common sense has been turned on its head in our culture, this time by transgender activists agitating for people to be able to use the bathroom that they feel corresponds emotionally to their self-identified gender rather than the anatomical gender of their biological sex. The issue has emerged prominently in recent national and local news....

The Catholic Church has some clear teachings on transgender issues. Catholics are called to treat everyone with compassion. Yet the church maintains that people may not change what Pope Benedict XVI called 'their very essence.' In a speech at the Vatican on Dec. 23, 2008, Benedict directly addressed transgender issues by cautioning Catholics about 'destroying the very essence of the human creature through manipulating their God-given gender to suit their sexual choices.'

Similarly, in his encyclical Laudato Si , issued last year on the environment, Pope Francis called for men and women to acknowledge their bodies as a gift from God which should not be manipulated. 'The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home,' the pope wrote, 'whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation' (no. 155).

In his recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis warns that gender ideology 'denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences ... It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created' (no. 56).


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