Transgender and communion?

[meltzerboy2]

I am assured that female genital mutilation does harm, and so am opposed to this. Where do you get the other assumptions? And when did we discuss fingernails? Please re-read carefully what I actually said before jumping to conclusions. Also reread what I said about children’s (progressive) rights.

Another thing: I think we have hijacked this thread, which is on the topic of transgender and communion. We’ll therefore have to stop the present discussion.

 

[Alex337]

I’ll PM You

 

[angel12]

Anyone taking up the “LGBTABCDEFG” cause is certainly suspect of lacking sanctifying grace.

That is an outrageous, unjust, and uncharitable generalization.

 

[PetraG]

Neither of my grandmother’s had a uterus: are women defined by that? Were they unwomen?

Do not pretend that determining someone’s sex is such a nebulous concept that it cannot be determined until they tell you.

Some people tell other people how they should act, how they should view themselves: that’s wrong.
It is very common, friend. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it.

So, you don’t think society ought to have rules of behavior?
You don’t think anyone but each individual ought to put any expectations on them?
Again, I don’t believe it. No one does.

 

[Alex337]

Alex337:

Neither of my grandmother’s had a uterus: are women defined by that? Were they unwomen?

Do not pretend that determining someone’s sex is such a nebulous concept that it cannot be determined until they tell you.

It’s a real question; were they unwomen because they lacked uterus’s?

Alex337:

Some people tell other people how they should act, how they should view themselves: that’s wrong.
It is very common, friend. I’m surprised you haven’t come across it.

So, you don’t think society ought to have rules of behavior?
You don’t think anyone but each individual ought to put any expectations on them?
Again, I don’t believe it. No one does.

So now you do think people should tell others how they should refer to their past…?

 

[babochka]

Looks like a very practical garment.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I sit here writing this, in my mid 50’s, with a silver faux hawk on my head that is always colored in front. Now it is a turquoise blue. It has been navy, deep purple, pink, jet black, next time I think I am going to do a deep russet for fall.

Years ago, my son wore a vest with a deacon collar shirt for his First Communion. No suit, no tie, I think suits on little boys look like Halloween costumes.

I don’t think the parish was wise to choose this hill to die on and I’m not sure there was a canonically sound basis, either.

With you, I promise there was more to this situation than a dress code.

 

[TheLittleLady]

It requires the pretense of a new persona and the pretense that the person not only is not but has never been the opposite sex to any degree .

I’ve known maybe half a dozen transpersons in my adult life, one of them worked for me many years ago when society did not talk about it. Heck, I am old enough to remember the Dr Renee Richards story.

Never have any of the people I know say they have

never been the opposite sex to any degree

In fact, some one would have to be out of touch with reality to think that way. Someone who was deluded would not be approved by a physician for hormones, etc.

The media love to put up stereotypes, people who screech when someone slips the wrong pronoun, who are just over the top. That is not what real people are like. That is put on, “reality TV” is far, far from reality.

 

[TheLittleLady]

That same law (continued into Leviticus) prohibits pretty much anyone with any physical disability from offering sacrifices:

Say to Aaron: None of your descendants, throughout their generations, who has any blemish shall come forward to offer the food of his God.

Anyone who has any of the following blemishes may not come forward:
he who is blind,
or lame,
or who has a split lip,
or a limb too long,
or a broken leg or arm,
or who is a hunchback
or dwarf
or has a growth in the eye,
or who is afflicted with sores, scabs,
or crushed testicles.

No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any such blemish may draw near to offer the oblations of the LORD; on account of his blemish he may not draw near to offer the food of his God.

He may, however, eat the food of his God: of the most sacred as well as sacred offerings.

Only, he may not enter through the veil nor draw near to the altar on account of his blemish; he shall not profane my sacred precincts, for it is I, the LORD, who make them holy.

End of the passage

Thank God, under the new law we with disabilities may enter ministry, may even become priests! Attended Mass celebrated by a deaf priest awhile back, it was very beautiful.

Let’s not go draping the old ceremonial laws on everyone as they no longer apply.

 

[Angannas]

So does the first part of Can. 916 mean that a mass celebrated by a priest in mortal sin who has not taken a chance to confess illicit?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think it’s important for everybody to understand that transgendered persons, and also those who are not transgender but cross-dress for some reason, and also those who have some condition where they might be mistaken for transgender but are really not, are individuals.

Whatever statement you read in the media about “transgender” is not going to apply to 100 percent of persons you see who might possibly be trans, unless it is a statement applicable to general humanity, such as all human beings have dignity, all human beings are children of God, all human beings deserve love, all human beings were born of a mother and a father, etc.

If you have known a reasonable number of transpeople (and/or people who fall in the other categories above) from different geographical places, backgrounds, jobs/ careers, etc. then you get this. If your experience with these people is limited to 0, 1 or 2 of them, or if you only know a handful from one little social circle or one particular job, you may not get this.

 

[BlueMaxx]

So does the first part of Can. 916 mean that a mass celebrated by a priest in mortal sin who has not taken a chance to confess illicit?

This may or may not answer your question…

http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur68.htm

 

[Tis_Bearself]

In regards to transgenders and Holy communion…

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.”

Fortunately, under Jesus’ new covenant, I can wear my square-jacketed blue pinstripe trouser suits to Mass, even with a shirt and tie, and nobody looks at me twice. (I’m not trans but I like a nice tailored boxy suit.)

And as others said, that stuff went out with Jesus’ new covenant. We even get to go see God in physical form ourselves now, daily, whereas at the time of Deuteronomy, if you weren’t a super duper holy priest you weren’t allowed to see God or you would be struck dead. I also greatly appreciate not having to bring animals to Church on Sunday for ritual slaughter. What a wonderful world we live in.

 

[Angannas]

Thanks, I read that as saying that such a priest is commiting the sin of sacrilege, but the mass itself might be licit. No doubts about validity

 

[BlueMaxx]

Yes…the Pries is under the guilt and punishment of his sin till he goes and properly confesses, but his representation to the flock is valid is my understanding…

Therefore a priest who is in a state of mortal sin should seek to confess as soon as possible and refrain from celebrating the sacraments until he has done so.

Normally, to celebrate Mass or receive Communion while in a state of mortal sin would be to commit a sacrilege. Yet, the sacrament would be valid; that is, there would be a true consecration and a true sacrifice.

The reason is: Christ is the principal actor of the sacraments, so they are efficacious even when performed by an unworthy minister. As St. Thomas Aquinas says: Christ may act even through a minister who is spiritually dead.

However, a priest who has fallen into mortal sin, but who is unable to make his confession despite his desire to do so, may celebrate Mass for the benefit of the faithful without adding a further sin of sacrilege.

So the parishioner is in the clear, but the Priest may want to scan the sky for lightening bolts…

 

[OraLabora]

Nope, not cleaning smegma can lead to some nasty infections.

Circumcision makes that a non-issue

So does washing daily

 

[PetraG]

It’s a real question; were they unwomen because they lacked uterus’s?

You have a lot of conversations going, so let’s briefly review how ours has progressed:
I wrote:

On that parallel, it is one thing to remove a healthy organ if the patient has a condition where leaving it on poses a threat to the patient’s health. A patient could have gastric bypass surgery on a healthy stomach, because intention is to improve the health of the whole body. So–it is theoretically possible that a patient could have surgery to treat a psychological condition. The issue is that it takes a very serious reason indeed before it is OK to remove a healthy organ.

Here is the problem: even if there is a moral reason, it is wrong to represent removing a healthy organ or receiving hormones as a sex change. The person’s sex does not change.

You wrote:

In terms of gender affirmation surgery transmen can, and some do, choose to keep their womb and uterus; so I assume you’re fine with these?

I wrote:

Why would they need to have healthy organs removed? They aren’t men.

My meaning was that they are women and a woman is meant to have a uterus.
You wrote:

Firstly: they are men

I wrote:

Where did the uterus come from? Did they have a hormonal problem that cause a uterus to develop in a man?

Then you wrote:

Neither of my grandmother’s had a uterus: are women defined by that? Were they unwomen?

You made the false logical leap from my premise
“[Excepting in rare cases of a hormonal problem in utero,] a man will not have a uterus”
to the false premise “Someone without a uterus is not a woman.”
The latter does not logically follow from the former. Implying that it does is called the fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Deliberately slipping in the negative “unwomen,” clearly meant to imply an insulting and derogatory attitude in me with regards to your grandmothers, tips me off that this is not really an honest inquiry into my thinking. A discussion is fine, but I am not here to engage in an exercise in sophistry… but let me add a bit to address the second part of your post.

 

[PetraG]

Likewise, when you say:

So now you do think people should tell others how they should refer to their past…?

You know very well that I was talking about people who have attempted to change their sex as treatment for their own gender dysphoria not being able to cope with it when other people with similar issues talk about their own pasts. Why? Because it challenges their delusion that they have not only actually achieved a sex change but that they have always had the opposite-sex persona they are now using.

It is not as if we accommodate any other delusions of identity in this way, do we? If think I’m the Queen of England’s long lost twin sister, it is not necessarily true that I’m lying and it is not necessarily true that I’m not fully functional in other respects. It isn’t wrong that someone may humor me in order to lower my stress level by never talking about my actual past. There are times for that, and it can be the kindest course, particularly when someone becomes upset or depressed when they think about their own past. Yes, it would be cruel to constantly bring up my issue, as if confrontation were the way to cure me instead of a way to get me all worked up. The difference is that no one is ever asked to really believe that I am actually the Queen’s sister. No one expects Britain’s royal family to invite me to Sandringham for Christmas, in the interest of kindness and respect for my deeply-held sense of identity.

Am I saying that gender dysphoria is the same as thinking one is the Queen’s sister? Well, if it means not being able to cope with life without denying at all times that one is in any way a member of the sex that one does not want to admit one does belong to at least in some way, then probably it is in that ballpark. It is one thing to say that the behaviors and clothing of the sex you were born with makes you very uneasy; it is quite another to deny you were ever in any way a member of that sex. Implying that anyone who will not join you in this denial must therefore be some kind of oppressive troglodyte takes the whole thing to another level.

 

[Nigel7]

"A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.”
Deut.​

Regardless of the “new covenant” arguments which claim that this verse no longer applies, do you honestly believe that dressing as the opposite sex is no longer an offense to GOD?
He says very clearly and in no uncertain terms that He DETESTS such behavior. That has not changed.
Where then does that leave the cross-dresser or transgender person? In a state of sanctifying Grace?
Certainly not.

All the mental and biblical gymnastics taking place in this thread does not change the fact that this behavior is indeed VERY offensive to the LORD our GOD. In fact, He finds it to be detestable behavior.

 

[PetraG]

All the mental and biblical gymnastics taking place in this thread does not change the fact that this behavior is indeed VERY offensive to the LORD our GOD. In fact, He finds it to be detestable behavior.

Drunkenness is offensive to Our Lord, too, but we deal with those indulging in alcohol abuse differently than those who have developed alcoholism. Being an alcoholic doesn’t make it OK to get drunk, but helping them change their behavior does become a different matter than dealing with someone who is merely self-indulgent.

As another example: it is obviously a grave sin to take your own life. The Church recognizes, however, that some states of depression cloud reasoning and the patient’s perception of reality. While we don’t ever tell someone who is suicidal that it is not wrong to attempt to take their own lives, we do realize that their level of self-mastery is physically impaired by factors beyond their control that require treatment and support in re-learning how to submit their willpower to grace. We understand that their capacity to see the value of their own life is physically impaired.