This reminds us of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, who stand with Hamas and accuse Israel of genocide. We're not familiar with U.S. Catholic magazine, but they assure us that saints and key figures dating back to the dawn of Catholicism were what we'd today consider nonbinary and that gender diversity has always been a part of the Church.
Gender diversity has been part of the Catholic Church since the very beginning, as saints and key Catholic figures lived as what we would today call nonbinary or trans to mirror a God who supersedes all human constructs. https://t.co/WnH6gmazpv
— U.S. Catholic magazine (@USCatholic) December 7, 2024
The magazine's "about the author" blurb tells us:
Emma Cieslik (she/her) is a queer Catholic scholar focused on material culture and LGBTQ+ identity within the church. She founded and directs Queer and Catholic, A CLGS Oral History Project based out of the Pacific School of Religion.
Cieslik writes:
The church’s gender foundations are cracking—its scaffolding of doctrinal semantics and conflicting guidance from Pope Francis and the Vatican buckling under pressure for LGBTQ+ inclusion, women’s ordination, and abortion rights. At its core is church leadership’s fear of “ideological colonization,” or the spread of western gender values to a traditional church. But if the church pushes for modernization, a progressive view of gender must be part of it.
…
… Western colonizers have historically forced patriarchal and queerphobic gender ideologies onto Indigenous communities around the world. The Catholic Church has been instrumental in these changes, so to argue that the church is somehow separate or fighting “ideological colonization” flatly contradicts church history.
Even more, Dignitas Infinita closely mirrors attempts in European and American countries to deny trans, nonbinary, and queer people’s access to gender affirming health care, restrooms, and important identification documents, including driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Many Americans could argue that Dignitas Infinita falls in line with modern American conservative values; there are currently more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills on the American docket today.
Is there anything Western colonizers can't do? Trans activists never fail to bring up that there are more than 400 "anti-LGBTQ" bills being considered without mentioning that most of them have to do with outlawing child mutilation.
"The genderqueer identity of these saints is largely what distinguished them as divine and was highlighted in art as evidence of their closeness to God," Cieslik writes, naming zero examples of nonbinary saints.
I’ve never wanted John Paul II to come back and kick anyone’s ass as much as I have whomever was involved in writing or publishing this nonsense.
— Robert McLaws (@robertmclaws) December 9, 2024
However many Hail Mary’s you’re saying this week, it’s not enough.
Really starting to hate Catholicism.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 9, 2024
This is revisionist history.
— #CMFL (@seeemmeffell) December 9, 2024
No Catholic actually believes this.
So... You don't have anyone who works at @USCatholic who knows about the Church's history or dogma... pic.twitter.com/oWF6Yzy3Fp
— The Science (@TheSciencePhD) December 8, 2024
Quick request: remove "Catholic" from your name, thanks. I worry it might confuse people.
— Lex Ludendi (@Lex_Ludendi) December 9, 2024
No, they did not, it has not been and God made us male and female. And this is not remotely Catholic.
— Anna D. West 🇺🇸 (@SlimWiggy) December 9, 2024
This editor is not a theologian, but isn't the creation of Adam and Eve sort of "imposing" the gender binary?
What is it with Catholics lately? The Vatican has a Palestinian Jesus that the Pope is enamored with, Catholics for Choice or whoever they are speculate about Mary aborting Jesus, and now you guys are denigrating your own history. What the hell?
— DelilahM (@delilahmused) December 9, 2024
As we reported earlier this month, Catholics for Choice posted, "This holiday season, remember that Mary had a choice, and you should, too."
There is nothing Catholic about this account
— Daily Romania (@daily_romania) December 9, 2024
This is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever read on this app.
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) December 9, 2024
We'd cancel our subscriptions to U.S. Catholic magazine if we had known it existed.
In other news, it's been a great week for Catholicism with the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
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