CHAOS AND SCANDAL IN THE DIOCESE OF JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI

Daily, it seems, we are witnesses to the reality that common sense has been turned on its head in our secular culture.  

But now, it appears, the Church has joined with transgender activists agitating for people who identify emotionally to their self-identified gender rather than the anatomical gender of their biological sex. 

Developments in the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri have emerged prominently in recent national and local news.

Of course, the whole question of gender identity arose and became an issue in the public forum under the former Presidential administration which taunted the so-called civil rights of transgender individuals.

The issue first arose in North Carolina, in response to an ordinance adopted in Charlotte that would have allowed transgender people to use whatever bathroom they wanted.  The State Legislature passed a law in March blocking local governments from enacting rules that grant such privileges to transgender people. 

A similar law passed in Mississippi which would have allowed people to withhold services from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals on religious grounds. 

In response, the former President said that these laws in North Carolina and Mississippi were “wrong” and “should be overturned.” The administration used the Department of Justice to warn the state of North Carolina that its law limiting bathroom access violated the civil rights of transgender people.

In Illinois, in response to a federal complaint, the Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 in suburban Chicago year granted a transgender student ( who was born male but identifies as female) limited access to the girls locker room at Fremd High School. Similarly, a transgender student at a Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 school was granted access to a locker room designated for the opposite sex. The Chicago Public Schools then announced that their students, teachers and staff could use whichever restroom matches their self-selected gender identity.

Transgender activists would have us believe that their ideology is based on science; however, the American College of Pediatricians has pointed out that transgenderism is classified as a mental illness and therefore has warned legislators and educators that conditioning children to accept transgenderism as normal is child abuse. 

They advised, “When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind, not the body, and it should be treated as such.”

Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, was so concerned about the psychological origins of gender-identity disorder that he halted the practice of sex-reassignment surgery at his institution. He concluded that the research demonstrated that Johns Hopkins should no longer participate in what he called “unusual and radical treatment” for “mental disorders.”

Officially, 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” 

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”.

And so, it is curious indeed (if not the very essence of being scandalous) that Bishop John Gaydos of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri is spearheading a new policy that pushes administrators to admit students from same-sex parenting homes into Catholic schools, without the parents having to sign a statement promising to respect Catholic ethics. 

Some teachers and Pastors (none of whom were consulted in the plan's formulation) object to this plan, saying it forces them in practice to ignore the psychologically and spiritually harmful environment of same-sex homes, and also exposes other students to scandal.

The 17-page policy drafted by the Jefferson City diocese was presented to all priests of the diocese on May 9 and to all diocesan school principals on May 11. One priest, who wishes to remain anonymous, objected to being morally responsible for students from same-sex homes when he knows they're living in objectively abusive situations.

Furthermore, the new plan would no longer require LGBT parents and students to sign the School Handbook, agreeing to practice Catholic ethics. Instead, they are encouraged to sign a nebulous document called Covenant of Trust, "which doesn't include this promise to abide by this code of ethics."

Proponents of the policy say it's worded in such a way as to give Pastors and Principals the right to refuse to enroll such students who would be immersed in an objective state of scandal at home and who would be a potential source of scandal to other students at school. 

There are others who believe that in practice, gay-friendly or weak Priests will cave to political pressure and bend the rules to admit problematic students into Catholic schools. They foresee commonsense problems evolving, like the transgender bathroom fiasco and transgender sports issue currently plaguing public schools.

Jesse Barton, a teacher and parent in the diocese, has watched this policy unfold.  He recently commented, "This document is ... carefully worded and ambiguous. ... The issue here isn't the policy; it's the praxis. Anyone with a mustard seed's worth of contemporary sense understands that arriving at the answer of 'No' [meaning no admittance] is a practical impossibility for the Pastors of our diocese."

What the eventual fallout will be as a result of this confusing and embarrassing moment in the history of the Diocese of Jefferson City remains to be seen.  

But, one result is certain:  the moral teachings of the Church seem no longer to be based upon objective moral norms but rather draw their binding force based upon the contemporary and subjective emotional impulses of a secular society more interested in political correctness than the right and dutiful observance of the moral order.

Already, a number of Catholics have called upon the Metropolitan of the Province of Saint Louis (of which Jefferson City is a Suffragan See), Archbishop Robert Carlson, to begin a formal investigation of Bishop Gaydos and the policy he has initiated.  A complication arises in the fact that Bishop Gaydos is himself a native of Saint Louis.

The People of God, the Christian faithful, cannot but find themselves confused and disheartened by these events.  Sadly, no one in authority is coming to their, to our, rescue!