(New Ways Ministry).
The U.S. bishops’ spring meeting is generally not a newsmaker, and indeed, has sometimes just been a private retreat. This June, however, was far more controversial than usual, and often for LGBTQ-related reasons. Today’s post provides updates on some of the speeches and votes relevant to gender and sexuality issues. Study on Transgender Vowed Religious Convened Responding to news that Lexington’s Bishop John Stowe, OFM, Conv., had received the vows of a transgender diocesan hermit, Br. Christian Matson, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance said the committee would prepare a study of the issue of transgender vowed religious. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illiniois, the committee chair and one of the episcopal conference’s most LGBTQ-negative members, told Our Sunday Visitor that the issue “is now on our agenda” as some bishops have requested “a clear analysis that will give the doctrinal and canonical guidelines.” Already, a “preliminary discussion” by the committee had found an “initial consensus” that “it’s not really possible for a (transgender) person to be admitted to the role of a hermit or consecrated life if they are not repentant of what they’ve done.” Paprocki denied this study was related to any particular bishop’s actions.