USCCB spokesperson responds to report of Catholic hospitals performing sex ‘transitions’ on children
Caroline MolloySpokespeople for several individual bishops and for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have issued responses to a recent report that found hundreds of children were subjected to “transgender” surgeries or puberty blockers at U.S.-based Catholic hospitals between 2019 and 2023.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the secular advocacy organization Do No Harm found that between 2019 and 2023, 170 children were subjected to “transgender” surgeries and 508 children were prescribed cross-sex hormone or puberty blocker drugs at various Catholic hospitals in the nation.
In an email comment to CatholicVote about the report’s findings, USCCB spokesperson Chieko Noguchi emphasized Church teaching regarding gender and surgical intervention:
The Catholic Church is clear in its teaching about the inherent dignity of each person as created in the image and likeness of God. We are always called to accompany those who are struggling, and this certainly includes people who struggle with his or her God-given identity as male or female; however, the bishops of the United States and the Holy See have been clear as to what is morally acceptable when it comes to procedures or interventions related to “gender transition.”
In the comment, Noguchi linked the U.S. bishops’ March 2023 statement, which provides Catholic health care institutions with what moral criteria must be taken into account when determining whether a medical intervention is morally permissible.
Noguchi also linked the Vatican-issued April 2024 declaration Dignitatis Infinita, which states that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
