United States: Transgender Individuals Infiltrate Seminaries

Jerome Listecki, Archbishop of Milwaukee, who chairs the Episcopal Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, told the bishops of the United States, in a text dated September 22, that they were considering “various options” to ensure that only biological males are ordained priests. Recommendations include DNA testing and a certificate from a medical expert chosen by the bishop.

As major Protestant and non-denominational Christian seminaries increasingly welcome transgender students, the Catholic Church has taken a strong stance on this issue.

In his recent brief, Archbishop Listecki says that his committee was made aware of “instances where it had been discovered that a woman living under a transgender identity had been unknowingly admitted to a seminary or a house of formation of an institute of consecrated life.”

In one case, Msgr. Listecki wrote, “the individual’s sacramental records had been fraudulently obtained to reflect her new identity.”

“In all instances, nothing in these individuals’ medical or psychological reports had signaled past treatments or pertinent surgeries.” The Archbishop noted that “fortunately” every case of a seminarian or religious-in-formation of transgender origin has been discovered, and “none of the biologically female seminarians received Holy Orders.”

The brief cites the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which requires the diocesan bishop to admit to the major seminary and ordain “only men who possess the requisite physical and psychological qualities.”

In addition, he adds, a diocesan “bishop can require various means to establish moral certitude in this regard,” adding that the committee encouraged him to write to the bishops about these occurrences so that they “exercise special vigilance as a new year of seminary formation begins.”

Faced with the “gender-mania” that has taken hold of people's minds, facilitated by ever more permissive laws and at ever younger ages, this sort of situation was unfortunately to be expected.

Male transgender individuals - thus born female - are too great an opportunity for those claiming the priesthood for women in the Church.

But contrary to what Archbishop Listecki fears, ordaining such an individual will not make him - or rather her - a priest. According to divine law, the priesthood can be conferred only to human individuals of the male sex. A change of identity card or outward appearance cannot do anything about it.

But, on the other hand, from a psychological and media point of view, it would certainly be a pitiful and boring business. It is also to be feared that, in the United States or elsewhere, one or the other bishop will attempt to ordain a transgender, as there have already been attempts to ordain women.