Entries by Angela Howard-McParland

What Disability Theology Can Teach the Church About Transgender Identities

Catholics should not be strangers to the deep connection between body and soul, refusing a binary that suggests we are composed of two separated entities. As Catholics, embodiment is central to the human experience and to God’s participation in the world, so how we treat the bodies of ourselves and others matters deeply.

Vatican Veto of LGBTQ-Positive Theologian’s Appointment Raises Serious Concerns

The Vatican’s has intervened to stop a theologian from becoming dean of an Italian seminary apparently over his views on sexuality, which include LGBTQ-positive writings. The debacle has raised concerns about academic freedom in the church and the relationship between the academy and the Roman Curia.

A Synodal Church Must Abandon Colonizing Ideas of Gender and Sexuality, Writes Gay Catholic

So many of the conversations about and hopes for the Synod on Synodality’s global assembly in Rome this October have focused on what will be gained as the Catholic Church becomes more of a synodal institution. But one gay Catholic points out that if the church wants to move towards Pope Francis’ synodal vision, it will have to also let go of some longheld ideas.

Church Teaching Needs to Acknowledge Gender Is Not a Binary, Writes Catholic Journalist

In the National Catholic Reporter, Rebecca Bratten Weiss explores the way that claims of “gender ideology” by Pope Francis and other church leaders fail to reflect gender realities in nature in favor of the church’s doctrinal claims.

USCCB Note on Gender Transitions “Could Have Been Written in the 1950s,” Writes Bioethicist

M. Therese Lysaught, a bioethicist and theologian, comprehensively dissected the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine’s recent statement that seeks to stop Catholic healthcare institutions from providing gender-affirming care.