The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has filed a complaint with the Biden administration over its proposed rule limiting Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grants to those who accept transgender ideology.
Writing on behalf of the USCCB, General Counsel William J. Quinn states that it is offensive to oblige Catholic services to “endorse a view of human embodiment and sexual difference contrary to Catholic teaching.”
“Any charity that has separate men’s and women’s bathrooms or changing areas could be required to allow men to use the women’s facility and vice versa,” the September 5 letter asserts, and “any charity may be required to address an employee or beneficiary by pronouns that do not correspond with his or her biological sex.”
Moreover, it notes that Catholic charitable agencies provide emergency shelters for victims of domestic violence, some of which are single-sex facilities for women who have been abused by men. The new ruling, however, “would arguably mandate them to house biological men who identify as women in single-sex facilities.”
The letter also reminds the Biden administration of basic biological facts. “Just as every human person necessarily has a body, so also human bodies, like those of other mammals, are sexually differentiated as male or female,” it observes.
“Sexuality characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level but also on the psychological and spiritual, making its mark on each of their expressions,” the text states, citing the Vatican’s doctrinal office. It cannot be reduced to a pure and insignificant biological fact, but rather “is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love.”
It also reiterates Catholic teaching on the union of body and soul.
“The soul does not come into existence on its own and somehow happen to be in this body as if it could just as well be in a different body,” it declares. “A soul can never be in another body, much less be in the wrong body.”
The Catholic Church also believes that young people, in particular, need to be assisted to accept their bodies as God’s gift, which is part of welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father, it adds.
The new ruling, “by placing unconstitutional conditions on participation in government programs,” threatens the Church’s capacity to carry out its service, which will end up especially hurting the most vulnerable, namely, “victims of domestic violence, refugees and newcomers, children, the homeless, the sick, and the poor,” it states.
Additionally, though the ruling pays lip service to religious freedom and conscience exemptions, in reality, those provisions are designed in such a way as to invite “arbitrary and capricious applications of religious freedom protections,” the bishops’ letter declares.