In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss how parishes should respond to transgender individuals within their communities. Tim emphasizes the need for compassion and understanding while navigating the complexities of identity and sin in the Church.
Transcript:
Tim Staples: What I cannot do as a Catholic is to refer to a he as a she, because that would be lying. Catholics, we cannot pretend to be God and say, guess what? Wham O. I’m going to change you from a male to a female.
Caller: My question has to do with a young man in my home parish that I am familiar with. I’ve gotten to work with him a couple times, and he has identified as transgender. Right. And so this is where it gets a little bit complicated.
Caller: Sure.
Caller: What should be the parish’s response, especially when it comes to, like, publications?
Tim Staples: And I’m glad you asked this, because we’re getting this more and more at Catholic Answers. And here’s the key. Of course, we welcome folks, and we understand that we are all disordered to various degrees and in various ways. We are all sinners working out our salvation with fear and trembling, as Philippians 2:12 says. And so we must welcome all, as St. James talks about, you know, in James, chapter two, verses one through nine, he There is talking about wealthy and the poor, but you welcome all, and we treat everyone with the same essential treatment because we are all essentially equal, creating the image and likeness of God, and we can’t overstate how important that is. Genesis, chapter one, verse 26. Male and female, he created them right in his image. All right, that’s the first thing. But now, when it comes to transgender, these are tragic situations where you have people that are really struggling. Gender dysphoria can be a very serious matter, can lead to all sorts of depression and such. And so this person needs help, and we need to love them with the love of Jesus Christ and help them to understand who they are. You are either a male or a female, and we know that’s a biological fact. Now, there are the extreme sorts of situations where biologically, you have genuine hermaphrodites, right, that are born. But see, this is a matter of biology where you can determine. And usually, even with hermaphrodites, you can determine which they are and help them to grow into who they are, except for some very rare cases where it’s very severe. And so, you know, you deal with those exceptional cases. But where you have a case where a person is clearly male, it is a biological fact. We need to help them to understand who they are. But now you’ve got a person coming to the church who says, hey, I’m identifying as a woman even though he is a man. What do we do? Well, what we can do is, look, if somebody changes their name legally, it doesn’t matter. Anonymous, what Somebody calls themselves, whether they’re a male or a female, they can call them, hey, Pat can be a man or a woman, but I’m joking. We could have Bob who changes his name to Alice, right? Well, I can call Bob Alice. That’s just a name. But what I cannot do as a Catholic is refer to a he as a she because that would be lying and would also be disrespecting that person and his God given gift of maleness. So that’s where we have to draw the line. As Catholics, we cannot pretend to be God and say, guess what, wham o, I’m gonna change you from a male to a female. Doctors who are trying to do this. The arrogance of this. I mean, it’s really upsetting that we’re gonna, you know, clip the plumbing here and turn somebody from a male to a female. No, you can’t. All you’re doing is disfiguring a man. Right. You know, and, and that’s a horrible thing to do. Does that make sense?
Caller: Anonymous yes, that does. Thank you.
Tim Staples: Yeah. And I know it’s a difficult situation and I know bishops and pastors are struggling with this and such and we should pray for them. Because you want to, of course, bring Jesus to these folks and it’s not that some of them don’t have Jesus in their life already. Absolutely. But I’m saying to bring the fullness of the gospel to them, to help them to be healed. Because obviously, and this, what drives me crazy about this whole discussion is it’s the actual individual suffering with gender dysphoria that’s sort of kicked aside in the whole discussion. We have real people who are suffering with a very serious problem. And just saying, oh this is normal doesn’t help anything because it’s not normal. This is a struggle for many of these folks. And now we have a situation in California where they want to make it illegal for us to reach out to people, people like this and to homosexuals who are struggling with same sex attraction and so forth, and make it illegal to minister to them, even if they want to be ministered to. I mean, that’s how far we have fallen here. But I will tell you this, brothers and sisters, we as Catholics will not compromise the essence of the gospel for any government, you know, any president or governor or anybody else. We’re going to proclaim the truth, male and female. He created them. Whether we’re talking about folks with gender dysphoria or same sex attraction, we’re going to proclaim the truth.
Caller: Amen to that. The fact is that in most situations, however, I just want to throw this out at you.
Caller: Yeah.
Cy Kellett: There’s a great ambiguity in that. You don’t know for certain. You have your. And in those situations, just be respectful.
Caller: Absolutely.
Cy Kellett: You just don’t know. So be respectful. And also in dealing with most people, I never call you he.
Caller: Hey, he.
Cy Kellett: Tim. You know, that’s when we’re talking to other people, when we’re talking to, it’s you. And I suppose the fact that you doesn’t have a gender is probably a blessing because we can just treat one another respectfully. But I, I, I really.
Tim Staples: But when you start saying she no,
Caller: then you’ve, then you’ve crossed the line.
Tim Staples: You have, because you’re diminishing that person. And that’s what we have to keep in mind here. Male and female. He created them.
Cy Kellett: Yeah, and, and, and I wonder if you would agree with me on this too. Some of the anger around people not just going along with this is that because it is actually a surrendering of reality and doesn’t have any intellectual support for it, you have to bludgeon people. There’s no other way to convince people to say a man is a woman or a woman is a man.
Tim Staples: Well, I think we’re seeing in our culture, sigh. And for all of our listeners and those of you watching, we are in serious straits as a culture. When you see the level of violence that’s arising today against anyone who stands for traditional marriage, stands against transgenderism and such. You’re right. And I do agree with your analysis totally that there’s really no intellectual foundation. And so it’s, it’s almost to be expected. But to see it real time is so disturbing.
Caller: Right.
Tim Staples: These folks who are coming with clubs and such after people because they’re trying to speak on a campus about these issues. This is scary stuff. Because, folks, we as Catholics are on the other side of this issue and many more when it comes to the moral law. We need politicians who understand that life must be protected right from the womb to the tomb. We need politicians who understand that God is God and we are not, because we are headed down a very dark path when it becomes violence. Agree with me or I’m going to bludgeon you. This is extremely dangerous.
Cy Kellett: And I have to say, I think the primaries is the time to vote because once you get to general elections, often you have nothing but unacceptable choices in your congressional district or senator or whatnot. Support people who are, yeah, basic sanity, like pregnant women have babies inside of them. That’s what they’re carrying. And men are men and women are women. Those.
Caller: Amen.
Caller: Tim Staples. It’s always a joy. Thanks very much.
Caller: Great to be with you, brother.