Vatican: Transgender Catholics Can Be Baptized
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
VATICAN CITY (Worthy News) – The Vatican said Wednesday that transgender people can be baptized in the Catholic Church after the pope already reached out to other members of the LGBTQ+ community, which uses the rainbow as its logo.
“A transgender person, even if they have undergone hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful,” a Vatican office said.
The document was a response to six questions that Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro in Brazil sent to the Vatican in July regarding LGBTQI+ people’s involvement in routine Catholic practices and released by the Vatican’s Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The document said Pope Francis had approved it on October 31.
Vatican officials also concluded that transgender people can be godparents and witnesses at religious weddings. They added that an individual in a same-sex relationship can also be a witness in Catholic marriages.
Church observers said the document appeared to suggest that children either adopted by same-sex couples or conceived through surrogacy cannot be baptized. It also implied that people in same-sex relationships should not be godparents to baptized children.
The announcement followed previous remarks by Pope Francis about homosexuality.
“NOT A CRIME”
He reaffirmed earlier this year that homosexuality “is not a crime” but that any sexual act outside of marriage is “a sin.”
He defined it as “unjust” laws that criminalize homosexuality or homosexual activity and urged church members, including bishops, to show “tenderness” as God does with each of his children.
“We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity. Being homosexual is not a crime. It is not a crime.”
However, “Yes, but it is a sin. Fine, but first let us distinguish between a sin and a crime. It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another,” he added in published remarks.
U.S. Jesuit Father James Martin, the editor of the Outreach.faith outlet, which provides news and resources for LGBTQ Catholics, reportedly wrote to the pope asking him to clarify his statement. “It is not the first time that I speak of homosexuality and homosexual persons. And I wanted to clarify that it is not a crime in order to stress that criminalization is neither good nor just,” the pope wrote.
“And I would tell whoever wants to criminalize homosexuality that they are wrong.”
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