Check out this headline: “Transgender students ‘unknowingly’ admitted to Catholic seminaries, archbishop warns” (Catholic News Agency, Sept. 29). CNA reports on a recent memo sent from chairman of the USCCB’s canonical affairs committee, Milwaukee archbishop Jerome Listecki, to members of the full USCCB. A link to the full story is at bottom.

Listecki writes that the committee recently “was made aware of instances where it had been discovered that a woman living under a transgendered identity had been unknowingly admitted to the seminary or to a house of formation of an institute of consecrated life.” He doesn’t say where, including what country.

In one case, writes Listecki, “the individual’s sacramental records had been fraudulently obtained to reflect her new identity.” Further, “In all instances, nothing in these individuals’ medical or psychological reports had signaled past treatments or pertinent surgeries.”

You’ll be glad to know that “None of the biologically female seminarians received Holy Orders,” according to CNA’s report.

Listecki suggests that, hereafter, each bishop “could consider requiring a D.N.A. test or, at a minimum, certification from a medical expert of the bishop’s own choosing, to assure that an applicant is male.”

If bishops and seminary heads didn’t already have enough to worry about, this subject presents a novel challenge — or set of challenges!

The link: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249129/transgender-catholic-seminarians-archbishop-listecki