Catholic bishops vote to ban gender transition treatment at US hospitals

U.S. Catholic bishops voted on Wednesday to officially declare a ban on gender transition treatment for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals.

The bishops, gathered in a Baltimore hotel ballroom, overwhelmingly approved revisions to their directives for the thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers in the country, formalizing a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender treatment options.

Bishops will have autonomy in putting the new directives into law for their dioceses.

More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. In some areas, Catholic hospitals are the only medical centers available.

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Most Catholic health care institutions have not offered gender transition treatment, including hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments.

“With regard to the gender ideology, I think it’s very important the church makes a strong statement here,” Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota’s Winona-Rochester diocese said during the public discussion of the revised directives.

The Catholic Health Association thanked the bishops for incorporating much of its feedback into the new directives.

“Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender,” the organization said in a statement. “We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalized.”

The new directives incorporate earlier documents on gender identity from the Vatican last year and the U.S. bishops the year before.

In the 2023 doctrinal note titled “Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” the bishops stated that “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex, or take part in the development of such procedures.”

But some parishes and priests welcome transgender Catholics, while others are less accepting.

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“Catholic teaching upholds the invaluable dignity of every human life, and for many trans people, gender-affirming care is what makes life livable,” said Michael Sennett, a transgender man who is active in his Massachusetts parish and serves on the board of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church.

New Ways Ministry arranged a meeting last year with the late Pope Francis to discuss gender transition treatment.

The group’s executive director, Francis DeBernardo, said that for many transgender Catholics he has spoken to, “the transition process was not just a biological necessity, but a spiritual imperative,” adding: “That if they were going to be living as authentic people in the way that they believe God made them, then transition becomes a necessary thing.”

Also on Wednesday, as U.S. Catholic bishops were discussing gender identity, the heads of several progressive religious denominations issued a statement in support of transgender people.

“During a time when our country is placing their lives under increasingly serious threat, there is a disgraceful misconception that all people of faith do not affirm the full spectrum of gender – a great many of us do. Let it be known instead that our beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole,” reads the statement from the 10 signers, including the heads of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Episcopal Church, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

In addition to the Catholic bishops’ discussion on gender identity, they overwhelmingly approved a “special message” condemning the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

Catholic leaders have criticized the president’s mass deportation agenda, as fear of immigration raids has slashed Mass attendance at some parishes.

The federal government earlier this year reversed a Biden administration directive for immigration agents not to carry out enforcement operations at sensitive areas such as churches and hospitals.

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“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” the bishops’ statement on Wednesday reads. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”

Several bishops also stood up to speak in favor of the statement during the final afternoon discussion.

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich even recommended stronger language around mass deportation, and his fellow bishops agreed.

“That seems to be the central issue we are facing with our people at this time,” he said.

The updated text now affirms that U.S. Catholic bishops “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.