CV NEWS FEED // Celebrity priest Fr. James Martin, SJ, disapprovingly shared a new Archdiocese of Milwaukee policy against LGBTQ denials of Church teachings on sexuality in Catholic parishes and parochial schools.
The new “Catechesis and Policy” discourages the use of “preferred pronouns’ in speech or in writing” at “parishes, organizations, or institutions” overseen by the archdiocese, and also promotes a dress code for Catholic school students that requires girls and boys dress “in accord with their biological sex.”
“The truth will set you free,” the Archdiocese asserted in the preface to its new policy announcement. “Christ’s words to his disciples call Christians in every age to embrace the truth of who we are as children of God, for only in embracing this truth can we be set free. This is Christ’s promise to which Catholics assent with mind and heart, and this promise is the foundation of the Church’s moral teachings.”
When Fr. Martin, who has made a name for himself as a promoter of the LGBTQ movement within the Church, shared the policy on Twitter, many of his more-than 300,000 followers replied with denunciations of the “truth” that the Church teaches about human sexuality. One called the policy “deliberately cruel.” Another tweeted “Jesus wouldn’t do this.” Another tweeted simply: “#Shame.”
But a number of faithful Catholics touted the new policy, recognizing it as a reassertion of the truth of Catholic teachings against the tenets of the secular LGBTQ movement.
CatholicVote tweeted a note of thanks to Archbishop Jerome Listecki for promulgating the new policy. “Thank you Archbishop Listecki … for standing up for truth and following the science,” CatholicVote tweeted.
“Weren’t you literally just tweeting something about how it was bad to call out the bishop of another diocese for what he does in his own diocese?” tweeted Fr. Brendon Laroche, a Catholic priest, in response to Fr. Martin.
Laroche was referring to a recent episode in which Fr. Martin rebuked not a mere priest, but a bishop – Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas. Martin wrote against Strickland last week for encouraging what Martin characterized as insubordination on the part of a priest who had criticized Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago over a liturgical matter.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Defends Church Doctrine
“Any parochial, organizational, or institutional documentation which requires the designation of a person’s sex is to reflect that person’s biological sex,” the new Archdiocese of Milwaukee policy states:
No person may designate a “preferred pronoun” in speech or in writing, nor are parishes, organizations, or institutions to permit such a designation. 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 policy also requires that all “persons must use the bathroom or locker room which matches their biological sex,” and “are to present themselves in a manner consistent with their God-given dignity.” In schools where a dress code or uniform is already in place, “all persons are to follow the dress code or uniform that accords with their biological sex,” the archdiocese stated.
In addition, the policy prohibits “any medications for the purpose of gender reassignment,” and explicitly forbids the use of “‘puberty blockers,’ even if self-administered, on parish or school property, with the purpose of a potential or actual ‘gender reassignment.’”
