Canadian Bishop Stands Firm Against School Transgenderism

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CALGARY (ChurchMilitant.com) - An Alberta bishop is standing for the Catholic faith against the imposition of transgenderism in Catholic schools.

Bishop Frederick Henry of the diocese of Calgary isn't backing down on his earlier comment about the Alberta provincial government being "totalitarian." In fact, he's doubling down in the face of heavy criticism.

ChurchMilitant.com reported last week on the Calgary prelate's response to a demand by the province's minister of education for new guidelines to accommodate transgender students in school. The guidelines say transgender students may use whatever bathroom or play on whatever sports team they believe reflects their perceived gender identity.

Bishop Henry's response garnered much criticism from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. But his critics were in for a surprise with his new comments.

If you are reading this piece in the hopes of discovering an apology and/or a retraction, you might as well stop reading right now. That's simply not going to happen. ... Only God can judge the state of the human soul, but it is pure nonsense to suggest we cannot and should not judge human behavior.

He refers to people showing much support for his deft defense of the Catholic faith, yet he says there are "a few nay-sayers" and others who referred to Pope Francis' "famous catch-all these days, 'Who are you to judge?'"

His Excellency goes on to dismantle the argument on transgenderism using Pope Francis' own words in his encyclical "Laudato Sí":

The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the ­Father and our common home. ... [V]aluing one's own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it.

Bishop Henry then expounds on the meaning and responsibility of judgment in Sacred Scripture. "The principal purpose of a judgment is to help a brother or sister avoid debilitating actions and improve," he writes. "The awesome burden of judging is the realization that we will be 'judged as we have judged.'"

He finishes by quoting Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), saying it's the last word on the subject.

Having a clear Faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.

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