Cardinal Farrell to lead Vatican investment oversight committee

Children’s Hospital Colorado announced that it is halting “gender-affirming” surgeries. / Thechildrenshospital|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Children’s Hospital Colorado will stop performing purported “gender-affirming” surgeries on patients aged 18 years and older, citing an “unprecedented” number of referrals and a need to focus on pediatric patients.

The surgeries involved “chest reconstruction,” the Denver Post reported. The procedures remove breast tissue to create a masculine appearance for women who identify as men. Staff are now referring prospective surgery patients to other hospitals.

The hospital said it has not performed such surgeries on patients under age 18, though it continues to provide puberty blockers and hormones and other services that aim to affirm the self-identified gender of some patients.

“We have been receiving unprecedented referrals for gender-affirming care, and in order to continue delivering expert multidisciplinary care to our pediatric patients and their families, we have made the difficult decision to no longer provide gender-affirming surgical procedures for adult patients 18 years of age and older,” the hospital told CNA in a statement.

Though a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital Colorado told the Denver Post last week that children’s hospitals have been “directly threatened as a result of the gender-affirming care provided in their institutions,” she later told NBC News that threats to other hospitals did not drive the decision.

The hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity still provides puberty-blocking medicines, cross-sex hormone therapy, and counseling as well as referrals to other services, according to its website.  

“Using puberty blockers can avoid body changes that do not align with your identity,” the TRUE Center website says. It says hormone therapy can help produce secondary sex characteristics like voice pitch and breast development “that align with your gender identity.”

Catholic ethics rejects the removal of healthy sexual organs as a form of mutilation, according to an FAQ by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. The Catholic vision of the person as a unity of body and soul means that a person cannot change his or her sexual identity.

Purported gender-affirming drugs and procedures, especially for minors, have also drawn political scrutiny, public protest, and sometimes threats.

In November 2022, the New York Times published an article questioning the use of puberty blockers, which are often presented as a safe, reversible option. There are various protocols for using the drugs, little documentation of patient outcomes, and the drugs are not government-approved for use in gender therapies.

The drugs are prescribed as early as age 8 so that self-identified transgender patients can begin cross-sex hormones at age 12 or 13. However, puberty can help clarify self-perceived gender, and patients could be making life-altering choices prematurely. Among those who have used the drugs, bone strength analysis finds that their bone growth does not fully rebound. 

There are also concerns that the drugs’ interference with hormonal development could disrupt mental growth and brain development in areas such as critical thinking, sophisticated self-reflection, social skills, and problem-solving skills.

“Our team is now working with impacted adult patients to explore referrals to the many other hospitals in the region that provide this care for adults,” the hospital said in its statement. “Children’s Hospital Colorado takes a holistic approach to ensure a patient’s mental and physical needs surrounding their gender identity and expression are met.”

An unnamed woman whose child was seeking to schedule chest reconstruction at Children’s Hospital Colorado after turning 18 this fall spoke about the changes to The Denver Post. 

Before they could schedule the surgery her child’s primary care physician and a psychologist had to evaluate the child’s physical health and ability to make a decision about the procedure. Health insurers also had to agree to pay for the procedure.

She said her child has now been referred to the University of Colorado Hospital’s surgery center. She told the Denver Post the whole process has to restart, thwarting her child’s goal of finishing the surgery before leaving for college next year.

Colorado is the first state to define gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit and requires coverage of it in individual plans and small group plans, according to the website of the Division of Insurance at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Colorado’s Medicaid program will streamline the process to provide people on Medicaid access to the drugs and surgeries on Aug. 30, 9 News reported.

An October 2022 Reuters report on children seeking gender care said 776 U.S. patients aged 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis underwent mastectomies from 2019 to 2021. This figure, compiled by health technology company Komodo Health Inc., was based on insurance claims data and did not include procedures paid for out of pocket. Genital surgeries were performed on another 56 patients in this time period.

The procedure is uncommon for patients under age 18, with some hospitals and gender clinics requiring patients to be adults. The surgical procedures are irreversible and have a heightened risk of complications, Reuters reported.

At least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021, Reuters said. It defined this dysphoria as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned to them at birth.

In the same period, at least 4,780 adolescents started on puberty blockers and at least 14,726 started hormone treatment.

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Pope Francis spoke about the Christian roots of Hungary during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 3, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, May 3, 2023 / 02:21 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Wednesday that freedom is under threat in Europe, as people choose consumerism and individualism over building families and community.

Even today, “freedom is under threat,” he said May 3. “Above all with kid gloves, by a consumerism that anesthetizes, where one is content with a little material well-being and, forgetting the past, one ‘floats’ in a present made to the measure of the individual.”

“This is the dangerous persecution of modernity that advances consumerism,” he underlined.

“But when the only thing that counts is thinking about oneself and doing what one likes, the roots suffocate,” he warned. “This is a problem throughout Europe, where dedicating oneself to others, community feeling, the beauty of dreaming together and creating large families are in crisis. All of Europe is in crisis.”

Pope Francis spoke about Europe, its roots, and the problem of consumerism, during his weekly audience with the public.

Speaking about his visit to Budapest, Hungary, April 28-30, he asked those present at the audience to think about “the importance of preserving roots, because only by going deep will the branches grow upwards and bear fruit.”

He began his reflection on the three-day trip to Hungary’s capital city by recalling the European country’s Christian roots and the ways those were tested in the 20th century.

“Their faith, as we have heard from the Word of God, has been tested by fire,” he said, noting the atheist persecution in the 1900s, when “Christians were struck down violently, with bishops, priests, religious, and lay people killed or deprived of their freedom.”

“But while attempts were made to cut down the tree of faith, the roots remained intact,” he said, pointing out the steadfastness of the “hidden Church” in Hungary.

“In Hungary, this latest persecution, the Communist oppression was preceded by the Nazi oppression, with the tragic deportation of a large Jewish population,” the pope added.

“But in that atrocious genocide, many distinguished themselves by their resistance and their ability to protect the victims; and this was possible because the roots of living together were firm,” he said. “Thus the common bonds of faith and people helped the return of freedom.”

Quoting St. Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis also spoke about Hungary’s “many saints and heroes, surrounded by hosts of humble and hard-working people.”

He noted, in particular, the devotion of Hungary’s St. Stephen, to the Virgin Mary.

“I want to recall, at the beginning of the month of May, how very devoted the Hungarians are to the Holy Mother of God,” he said.

“Consecrated to her by the first king, St. Stephen, they used to address her without pronouncing her name, out of respect, calling her only by the titles of Queen,” Pope Francis said. “To the Queen of Hungary, therefore, we entrust that dear country; to the Queen of Peace, we entrust the building of bridges in the world; to the Queen of Heaven, whom we acclaim at this Easter time, we entrust our hearts that they may be rooted in the love of God.”

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A protest of the coup d’etat in Hpa-An, the capital of Karen State, Burma, on Feb. 9, 2021. Credit: Ninjastrikers (CC BY-SA 4.0). / null

Denver Newsroom, Jun 29, 2022 / 11:26 am (CNA).

A Catholic diocese in Burma has ordered two priests to stop participating in politics and posting on social media against the country’s power structure and Church officials. The priests are staunch critics of the junta whose 2021 coup launched an insurgency that the Catholic bishops hope to end. 

Father Dominic Wun Kyaw Htwe and Father Clement Angelo Ate both faced rebukes from the Diocese of Kengtung for openly opposing the junta. The two priests are living in exiled communities across the border with Thailand.

“Your active involvement in politics and your posts on social media not only cause great perplexity,” said a June 22 letter to Htwe, charging that his actions divide “public opinion and our Christian community itself.”

The June 22 letter to Htwe from Father Peter Anwe, administrator of the Diocese of Kengtung, cited his active participation in politics through being present at protest movements and through social media posts against political authorities and Church leaders “despite several warnings.”

The Kengtung diocese is in the Shan state of Burma, also known as Myanmar, and is heavily affected by the ongoing civil war, Asia News reports.  A junta overthrew the country’s government on Feb. 1, 2021. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s elected civilian leader, was detained along with the country’s President, Win Myint. Many supporters of the government took to the streets in protest, and some took up arms and formed rebel groups.

Htwe responded to the diocese’s letter, saying, “This situation has been thought of since the beginning of the revolution. You can kick me out at once.” He said he is “proud of being far… from a society that is dominated by fear and enjoys the pursuit of financial riches rather than justice and truth.”

“I have a very strong love of my mother religion,” the priest said, saying the present is a time “when there is a clear distinction between right and wrong.” The warning to him has strengthened his resolve to “fight harder” 

Ate, the other priest rebuked by his diocese, said he would continue “fighting and standing with our suffering people” and “do as much as I can for them.”

Some Church leaders have been outspoken. Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon has strongly objected to the military’s death sentences for some activists.

“As cardinal of Myanmar I plead — from the very depths of my heart — with the junta, not to hang these men, and I appeal to the world to act,” he said at an international conference last Monday. “If the regime goes through with this, it marks a new low for this already brutal, barbaric, inhumane and criminal junta.”

In January, Bo told Vatican Radio his country suffers from “spiraling chaos, confusion, conflict, and human agony.” The country’s bishops are trying to accompany the people, advocate for humanitarian access, and urge all parties in the conflict to make peace.

Catholics make up only 1% of the country’s population, which is majority Buddhist.

Some 1,900 people have died and another 1 million have been displaced under the junta’s repressive control of the country, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this month. Thousands more have been arrested, she said, and an estimated 14 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

In the Diocese of Loikaw in eastern Burma, almost half of the parishes have been abandoned because of intense fighting. At least nine churches in the diocese have been hit by government military shelling and airstrikes, according to the report.

Htwe, 34, joined the protests immediately after the coup. After receiving warnings from backers of the coup, he was warned he would be arrested. He fled his parish of St. Anthony of Padua in February 2021 and hid in a border town for six months before crossing into Thailand, disguised as a plantation coffee worker, according to Asia News.

He began to help a Thai priest at a parish in the Diocese of Chiang Rai that mainly serves Akha people, the same ethnicity as Htwe. He ministered the sacraments and gave catechism lessons, but also collected donations of money, food, and clothing for refugees from Burma.

“Our dreams, our hopes and our future have been taken away from us. Our lives were destroyed by terrorist and murderous soldiers,” he told AsiaNews in April. 

He denounced the Burmese army and said people in Burma are “tortured, raped and burned alive.” 

“We want to see at least the right to life as human beings recognized. Myanmar’s should not only be an internal problem, it should be an international issue because these are crimes against humanity,” he said.

The priest accused the Chinese government of backing the junta in Burma over the democratically elected government.

In an April letter on Holy Thursday 2022, Htwe called for “concrete actions” from the international community.

[…]