BALTIMORE (CNS)—An advisory body to the U.S. bishops has called for the event of practical and pastoral guidance on gender dysphoria to assist laypeople and clergy of their ministries in parishes, schools and other settings.
The suggestion was amongst a series of proposals from the National Advisory Council that was included in a report Nov. 16 delivered to the autumn general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore.
The council’s work is to review, discuss and advise the bishops on the agenda items from Administrative Committee meetings which may be coming before the complete USCCB for motion on the bishops’ annual fall general assembly. It includes about three dozen members, including clergy, women religious, laypeople and 4 bishops.
Mark Sadd of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, who’s chair of the council, told the assembly that members of the advisory group had been discussing the difficulty of gender dysphoria for several years and that it felt it was time to make the request through a nonbinding resolution adopted during its September meeting.
“Currently, families, parishes and schools are each day encountering difficult conversations with their children and feel sick equipped to elucidate or accompany them through this journey.”
“Currently, families, parishes and schools are each day encountering difficult conversations with their children and feel sick equipped to elucidate or accompany them through this journey,” Sadd said in his report.
“Gender dysphoria” is a term that describes a way of unease or distress that an individual may experience by feeling there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.
Sadd shared that a NAC member, a teacher, had described having to confront this challenge at her school.
“Our schools are having weighty and frequent discussions about policy and catechesis. We urgently need guidance on proper terms, approaches and Catholic teaching,” he quoted the teacher as saying throughout the NAC’s September meeting.
“If it is just not you, our bishops, who speak on these (issues), then who will speak? If it is just not now in the current, then when?”
In response, he asked the bishops’ assembly: “If it is just not you, our bishops, who speak on these (issues), then who will speak? … If it is just not now in the current, then when?”
Sadd said the NAC adopted 4 other nonbinding resolutions on issues related to USCCB, including one concerning the importance of communications within the work of the conference.
The resolution specifically urges that the bishops draft a “framework for the responsible participation of publishers, journalists and platforms to reflect the influence of contemporary communication including social media.”
Sadd explained that NAC members weren’t on the lookout for the bishops to officially approve Catholic media outlets but that they set forth principles that guide how the bishops and dioceses “affirm and express Catholic values.”
Mark Sadd: “The church should be seen not only because the guardian of the religion, for all times, for family and for her institutions, but in addition because the leading advocate of the Gospel values of charity, mercy and of affection.”
“The church should be seen not only because the guardian of the religion, for all times, for family and for her institutions, but in addition because the leading advocate of the Gospel values of charity, mercy and of affection,” Sadd said.
Social media, he added, has polarized society and he said the NAC sees such outlets as presenting a chance “to show people the way to use old media, latest media and social media in a way fitting to their discipleship.”
Sadd’s report described how the council recently heard concerning the restructuring of the USCCB Department of Communications from James Rogers, the conference’s chief communications officer. The restructuring includes the closing of Catholic News Service domestic operations Dec. 31, and the shuttering of the USCCB Publishing Office.
Regarding the closing of CNS, Sadd said NAC members were “wistful but accepting” of the choice while suggesting that the “restructuring presents a really perfect time to be certain that the mandate of the communications department is sustainable and achievable.”
“Our members are calling on the bishops to reconfigure the church’s resources through all of its institutions to more life-centric ministries, especially to moms and kids in need.”
The 2 remaining resolutions ask the bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations to share leadership development resources with clergy and lay leaders alike and to distribute a report on the effectiveness of existing practices to forestall clergy sexual abuse, respectively.
The report would cover steps under the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” now 20 years old, and the Catholic Bishops Abuse Reporting System regarding allegations against bishops in addition to bishops’ handling of abuse charges.
The NAC report also credited the bishops for his or her three-year eucharistic revival, which can culminate in a National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in 2024.
“The states of belief or unbelief of Christ within the Blessed Sacrament remain of highest concern to the members of the advisory council,” Sadd said.
At the identical time, NAC members urged the bishops to devote more time during their assembly to presentations on life issues, saying the time allotted to such concerns during this 12 months’s fall assembly “was grossly inadequate.”
“Our members are calling on the bishops to ramp up the church’s advocacy on other life issues and to reconfigure the church’s resources through all of its institutions to more life-centric ministries, especially to moms and kids in need,” Sadd said.
