Trans surgeries on kids.
It’s hard to even imagine it…
But it’s happening.
Today, our friends at Do No Harm – leaders in the fight against transgender ideology – released shocking figures revealing the exact numbers of children in our country who have been mutilated by so-called “gender surgeries.”
Between 2019 and 2023, thousands of children under 18 suffered the permanent mutilation of their reproductive organs – and even more ingested drugs to block puberty.
And hundreds of them were “patients” at Catholic hospitals.
The receipts don’t lie: 170 children were subjected to transgender surgeries – and 508 children received cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers – at Catholic hospitals over the last five years alone.
CONTEXT: We’ve poured over the data. If there is any good news, it’s that only a small number of procedures were performed on minors at many Catholic hospitals. In fact, in many cases, the data shows that often it was just one child.
We are hopeful that means hospital leadership stepped in after learning about that one procedure and told the offending doctor, “We don’t do that here because it’s bad medicine, a violation of human dignity, and unacceptable in our faith.”
But for a handful of Catholic hospitals, there is a clear pattern of abuse. The most egregious example is Providence Health, the fourth-largest Catholic health system in the US, with a significant presence on the West Coast, which appears to have performed trans surgeries on nearly 100 children and prescribed dangerous hormones or puberty blockers to hundreds more.
Hearing this is not just a massive scandal. It also made me angry. And I’m sure it makes you angry too.
Christ had strong words for this kind of evil: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea (Matthew 18:6).”
I’ll reveal something else: We knew this data was coming. We’ve been working on uncovering the truth behind this abuse of children for some time. And we wanted to make sure we got it right.
With Do No Harm’s permission, our team spent the last two weeks working to notify bishops and Church officials of the bombshell report. Our goal was to be helpful to bishops and the Church. Not just play gotcha and create a controversy.
The overwhelming response from our bishops was utter incredulity – how could Catholic institutions, entrusted with Catholic healthcare ministries, harm children in this way, and flagrantly violate Church teaching?
How could Catholics do this to little children?
Have we learned nothing?
They really did not know.
This is a painful and embarrassing moment for the Church. But a lot of the chatter I’m hearing today is that many bishops are actually glad this news came out publicly. It gives them a chance to demand answers from those in Catholic healthcare, and to demand changes – as well as to work on new directives for Catholic healthcare that directly addresses these new threats to human dignity and children’s health.
I know the temptation is to grow angry at the bishops for not doing more sooner. But I want to ask something different today. We need to rally behind our bishops to stop this from happening now.
Catholic healthcare is a massive industry, receiving an estimated $200 billion in revenue every year. It’s a massive industry that does much good. It is a huge part of the witness the Church gives in the United States. But it needs real reform.
Our team is working on doing just this – offering help, recommendations, and solutions to any and all Church leaders that want to address this monstrous abuse of children.
I’ll be updating you more in the coming weeks and months.
For now, please pray for our bishops. Pray for the many good, faithful people in Catholic healthcare. And also pray for those that have chosen to harm children in the name of healthcare.
And pray for the children whose lives will never be the same.
This is why CV exists.
To do the hard work needed to take on even the most difficult challenges facing our country and our Church.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support.