Bishops Call for Urgent Review of ‘Pediatric Sex-Change Services’ at Catholic Hospitals
Database Released In October Found That About 150 Catholic Hospitals Assisted Minors In Gender Transitioning During a Five-Year Period
The Catholic Church teaches that a person’s sex is chosen by God and is not alterable, and that trying to do so harms the person. (photo: ADragan / Shutterstock)
Bishops should discuss and act on a recent report that Catholic hospitals have provided “pediatric sex-change services” for patients 17 and younger, two bishops told EWTN News recently.
Their comments come as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops holds its annual fall meeting in Baltimore, which began Monday.
As the Register reported last month, on Oct. 8 a medical watchdog organization called Do No Harm released a database finding that about 150 Catholic hospitals in the United States provided “pediatric sex-change services” between 2019 and 2023, including 33 Catholic hospitals that performed so-called gender-reassignment surgeries on minors.
Bishop James Conley, who leads the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, told the Register last week that he has discussed the report privately with hospital administrators, Catholic physicians, and bishops of dioceses with Catholic hospitals mentioned in the Do No Harm database.
Though the topic is not on the agenda of the four-day U.S. bishops’ meeting, Bishop Conley said he hopes bishops at least talk about it privately.
“We need to discuss it. We have an obligation especially to protect those who are most vulnerable — and particularly children, minors. Because this is just another form of child abuse,” said the bishop, who published a column on the subject last week in his diocesan newspaper, the Southern Nebraska Register, which was also republished by the Register.
More than 520 minors received treatments in Catholic hospitals in about 40 states during that five-year period, according to the data. More than 150 had surgeries to alter their appearances to resemble the opposite sex, while more than 380 children were given puberty blockers or hormone therapies.
Spokesmen for several Catholic health-care organizations mentioned in the database have declined to confirm or deny that their hospitals have provided chemical or surgical procedures that contradict the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. But they have defended the care they provide patients, including those who identify as transgender.
Supporters of sex transitioning say that some people find themselves trapped in a body that does not reflect their self-identity, and that denying treatment needlessly prolongs or deepens their mental suffering.
The Catholic Church teaches that a person’s sex is chosen by God and is not alterable, and that trying to do so harms the person.
“Beyond the understandable difficulties which individuals may experience, the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created,” Pope Francis said in his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Gospel of Love).
In 2023, the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine published guidelines that said, “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures.”
Bishop Conley’s diocese does not have a Catholic hospital in the Do No Harm database. But he said the report disturbed him because he believes such procedures hurt the patients they’re supposed to help.
“All the studies indicate that rather than offer surgeries and puberty blockers and hormone therapy, which cause permanent damage, we need to accompany these young people and to help them understand better the gift of their biological sex,” Bishop Conley said.
Bishop Thomas Daly, who leads the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, told EWTN News Nightly last month that he hopes bishops will talk about the sex-change database during regional meetings of bishops and perhaps discuss it as a body at a future meeting.
“It’s not something that is going to go away, and so there is certainly a factor of time,” Bishop Daly said during a television interview Oct. 30.
Bishop Daly also spoke with the Register last month. During that interview, he noted that bishops are limited in what they can do about Catholic hospitals since they don’t run them. A local bishop can take away the ability of a Catholic institution in his diocese to call itself Catholic, but otherwise has no direct authority over Catholic hospitals.
Bishop Conley told the Register that he’s hopeful individual bishops through private conversations will be able to persuade the leaders of Catholic hospitals not to participate in procedures that deliberately alter sexual appearance.
“I’m a big proponent of sitting down with the administration of a hospital that happens to be in the person’s diocese and discussing these questions,” Bishop Conley said. “The problem is these hospital systems have gotten so large and the administration of these hospitals is very complex so it’s really hard for a bishop to understand who is really making the decisions.”
The Nebraska bishop told the Register that attempting to alter bodily characteristics doesn’t aid people who experience consternation over their sexual identity.
“Obviously, there are emotional challenges in these people’s lives. But you don’t treat the emotional and mental challenges by encouraging something that has been proven to not have favorable outcomes and does not solve their challenges or their issues, that can cause irreparable damage to their bodies and their mental health,” he said.
Bishop Conley, recounted attending a Catholic Medical Association conference in Orlando, Florida, in September during which seven adults spoke about their sex transitions during adolescence and their detransitioning as adults.
“They shared their testimony, which was very moving, and heartbreaking in many ways, because they regretted their decision that they made when they were teenagers. But beautiful, powerful witness, and courageous witness, of their brokenness but their desire to be whole,” Bishop Conley said.
Dr. Patrick Hunter, a pediatrician with a master’s degree in bioethics who has been studying sex transitioning for about 10 years, also spoke at the conference.
He told the Register that Catholic hospitals aren’t the only concern when it comes to sex transitioning.
“I don’t think any hospital should be doing this, let alone a Catholic hospital,” Hunter said. “All the evidence that anyone would benefit is low quality. Low quality means we can’t be certain what the outcomes will be. And we have increasing reports of harm and regret that should concern all of us.”
He added, “When we don’t know what we’re doing, why are we doing it? I fear it’s being done for socio-political reasons and not for the benefit of those people who are suffering. We need to find a better way to care for them.”
Hunter called sex transitioning bad medicine.
“If this didn’t have anything to do with gender and sex, and frankly politics, everyone would be up in arms. You’re doing what to who, and you don’t know what’s going to happen?” Hunter said. “Historically, we’ve protected vulnerable populations. That’s a good society that does that. Now we’re taking advantage of them, for social and political agendas.”
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