This was unexpected, and I am pretty sure that Rome is not aware of this.

But apparently the Catholic Church, through an organization authorized to act as the Church and not just funded by it, performs transgender surgeries.

Via The Daily Wire’s Spencer Lindquist, who does great reporting. You should follow him on Twitter! Michael Hichborn at the Lepanto Institute did the legwork for the excellent report.

They lie, the obfuscate, they defraud, and they rely on their pals in media, government, finance, and technology to censor anyone who exposes them. https://t.co/WdMSQn2lce

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 12, 2023

It is somewhat surprising, although not shocking in 2023, that Catholic hospitals would provide abortion and transgender “care.” Any organization not explicitly run by the Church these days is probably skirting the rules since these days both laws and moral strictures are merely suggestions when it comes to doing what the Left desires. Anything not explicitly Catholic can be presumed to be Catholic in name only.

But what is happening here is, in fact, being done by an organization that is empowered to act in the name of the Church itself, and therefore it would be expected to behave as Church doctrine requires. It isn’t, by a long shot.

At issue are procedures performed at hospitals run by CommonSpirit Health, the largest Catholic healthcare network in the country.

CommonSpirit is not some run-of-the-mill organization that calls itself Catholic. It is, in effect, an arm of the Catholic Church:

CommonSpirit Health is sponsored by the Catholic Health Care Federation, which is legally defined as a “public juridic person within the meaning of the code of Canon law for the Roman Catholic Church,” according to Page 28 of CommonSpirit’s 990 IRS form.

It goes on to read:

As a public juridic person in the Church, CHCF is the juridical equivalent of a diocese or parish or religious order in the Catholic Church. As a public juridic person, CHCF is not merely affiliated with the Catholic Church; it is the Catholic Church, an official part of the Church itself, with a munus or duty assigned to it by the Church, and able to act publicly in the name of the Church.

A sponsorship document from the Catholic Health Care Federation, which sponsored CommonSpirit, explains the process behind the approval of the organization by Catholic authorities in Rome. The Catholic Health Care Federation explains that it is accountable to the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, “the ecclesiastical authority that granted Catholic Health Care Federation Public juridic personality.”

The document goes on to explain the significance of juridic personality, explaining that “a public juridic person may acquire, retain, administer, and alienate property in the name of the Roman Catholic Church.

Rather than just claiming a Catholic identity, CommonSpirit is able to identify as Catholic because it was sponsored by an organization given authority by the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, located “in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.” 

The information comes from a report put out by the Lepanto Institute, which is dedicated to holding specifically Catholic but also other Christian organizations to their principles.

That is a tough task these days.

The report is quite shocking, actually, as many of these hospitals provide medical and surgical abortions as well as transgender surgeries. Massive investments have been made to expand their offerings.

CCommonSpirit-Report-6.9.2023-FINAL

• As was found in this report, hospitals belonging to CommonSpirit Health are engaged in the following gravely immoral and unethical practices:
  • Providing puberty blockers to children for the purpose of “affirming” their gender identities.
  • Providing hormone treatments to patients suffering gender dysphoria for the purpose of
  “affirming” gender identity.
  • Performing surgical operations to remove women’s breasts and surgically alter their genitals to
  resemble male genitals.
  • Performing surgical operations to implant false breasts in men and surgically alter their genitals
  to resemble female genitals.
  • Performing abortions.
  • Providing all manner of contraceptives, including abortifacients.
  • Performing surgical sterilizations.

While a number of the hospitals in the Common Spirit system report that they provide abortion services, it is quite possible that they could argue that the abortions they perform are medically necessary, and without more information, it is too soon to get outraged. I suspect that their definition of what is an appropriate abortion differs from the Church, but simple forms (the forms regarding what services the hospital provide is included in the linked PDF) listing abortion as a service is not sufficient information for me to conclude that they definitively are violating Church strictures.

As for contraception, this being California it is likely required by law. Simple prudence suggests that the evil of not providing medical care at all would outweigh the sin of providing contraceptives. I do not know the Church’s teachings on this.

But there is no ambiguity about the Church’s stance on transgender surgery. It is forbidden. Pope Francis, perhaps the most liberal and gay-friendly Pope ever, is very clear on this:

I always distinguish between what pastoral care is for people who have a different sexual orientation and what gender ideology is. They are two different things. Gender ideology, at this time, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. It goes beyond the sexual. Why is it dangerous? Because it dilutes differences, and the richness of men and women and of all humanity is the tension of differences. It is growing through the tension of differences. The question of gender is diluting the differences and creating an equal world, all blunt, all the same. And that goes against the human vocation.

I am not a fan of Francis, but his stance on both homosexuality and transgenderism is absolutely consistent with the catechism in my view–not to mention he is a higher authority on the subject! As Catholics or Christians, we cannot condemn people for their “orientation” or even reject people as evil for committing sins (promoting evil is different), because we are all sinners in need of redemption.

I bear no ill will toward anybody either for their sexual orientation or their struggle with their sex; recruiting others into sin and reveling in it are different matters entirely. But to revile people as “sinners?” Sorry. That applies to all of us. Not that we should embrace or give in, but condemning others is incompatible with Church teachings in my view.

What matters here is that the Church itself is performing acts that are, in the words of Pope Francis, “evil.”

The Church has no authority to impose its teachings on non-Catholic organizations, and can only instruct Catholics themselves on its teachings. Short of excommunication, though, it is difficult to see any way that it could stop a Catholic surgeon from performing these procedures.

But it darn sure has authority over an organization that is, by its nature, an extension of the Vatican.

It should do so.