Catholic bishop criticises 'sinful' gender ideology

Bishop Thomas Daly, chair of the US bishops’ conference’s education committee, told the National Catholic Register he considered it “tragic” and “sinful” that some Catholic institutions permitted “preferred pronouns” when someone asks to be identified by a gendered pronoun different from their biological sex. Daly said this was part of the “gender ideology.”

Daly said that some Catholic institutions, in an attempt at “being welcoming and affirming,” were permitting the kind of gender ideology that has “no place” in Catholic institutions, especially schools. This “misplaced compassion,” Daly said, unintentionally harms children who are essential being experimented on by “adults who really do not have the best interests of young people at heart”.  

The bishop’s comments come at a time when several dioceses have begin grappling with the issue of self-identifying “transgender” or “non-binary” students in Catholic schools. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee issued a policy earlier this year that stated “while biological sex and ‘gender’ – or the socio-cultural role of sex as well as ‘psychological identity’ – can be distinguished, they can never be separated. Should someone experience a tension between biological sex and gender, they should know that this interior conflict is not sinful in itself but rather reflects ‘the broader disharmony caused by original sin’ and often results from the residue of social ills and cultural distortions of what constitutes ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’.”

“Permitting the designation of a preferred pronoun, while often intended as an act of charity, instead promotes an acceptance of the separability of biological sex and ‘gender’ and thus opposes the truth of our sexual unity,” the Milwaukee guidelines say.

Critics allege such policies harm exceedingly vulnerable children who experience gender dysphoria. Paulist Father Stuart Wilson-Smith called the Milwaukee text “a callous, anti-intellectual and anti-human dumpster fire of a document unworthy of any association with the name of our Lord and brother”. 

Most dioceses do not have a firm policy on how to cope with transgender students, preferring to treat the matter on a case-by-case basis. This reflects pastoral concern for those who genuinely experience gender dysphoria, as well as for those who might be tempted to question their gender identity because of cultural or other pressures, even though they do not evidence any gender confusion.