Father Thomas Petri, a Dominican moral theologian and president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., told the Register that Pope Francis “has been clear in his condemnation of trans ideology.”
“How Matson can be a hermit while, at the same time, dissenting from Church teaching in such a public way is a question that needs to be asked,” Petri said.
“Given the centralization of authority to the Holy See in recent years over certain matters such as the foundation of new institutes of consecrated life, the celebration of the 1962 Mass, and the status of apparitions, it will be interesting to see how this decision of Bishop Stowe is handled,” the priest said.
John Grabowski, a moral theology professor at the Catholic University of America, said Catholic teaching “sees the body and sex as integral parts of the person.”
Individuals suffering from “gender discordance” ought to be treated, not celebrated, he said.
Celebrating a so-called transgender identity “raises the danger of scandal — sowing confusion in people’s minds about the Catholic understanding of the goodness of the body and its sex,” he told the Register.
“And to call someone ‘brother’ who is biologically female or ‘sister’ who is biologically male deepens that confusion,” Grabowski said.
Matson chose Pentecost Sunday, May 19, to reveal her transgender identity, something Farnan said posed a particular risk of scandal.
“For Matson to choose Pentecost as a day to publicly come out as transgender not only negates the gift of the body that God gives each of us at the moment of conception but also adds to the general cultural confusion and in that way harms the salvation of the world,” she told the Register.
The Vatican’s Dignitas Infinita declaration argued that gender ideology itself “intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”
The declaration emphasized that “all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected” and that “only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity.”
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Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.