One Catholic diocese is leading the charge against wokeism, insisting that students and worshippers use bathrooms and lockers consistent with their biological sex and banning the use of preferred pronouns in schools and parishes.
Woke activists have reacted with anger that the Diocese of Des Moines in Iowa, which started implementing its anti-woke policies on Monday, is openly fighting back against the woke agenda while supporters have gratefully acknowledged the efforts of the diocese.
“Any parochial, organizational, or institutional documentation which requires the designation of a person’s sex is to reflect that person’s biological sex,” the diocese writes. “No person may designate a ‘preferred pronoun’ in speech or in writing when related to ministry activities of any kind, nor are parishes, organizations, or institutions to permit such a designation. To permit the designation of a preferred pronoun, while intended as an act of charity, instead promotes the dissociation of biological sex and ‘gender’ and thereby confuses or denies personal integrity.”
“All persons must use the bathroom or locker room that matches their biological sex,” the diocese continues. “Diocesan parishes, organizations, and institutions are permitted to have individual-use bathrooms that are available for all members of the respective community.”
“Finally, a church that is acting like a church,” one supporter declared, according to The Daily Mail.
But State Sen. Claire Celsi, a Democrat, snapped, “This is not what Jesus would do,” telling the Des Moines Register, “To actually come out, and say, ‘We’re going to stamp this out, we’re going to pretend like it doesn’t exist,’ and issue this kind of edict is, I think, reprehensible.” And Courtney Reyes, executive director of the LGBTQ+ equality organization One Iowa, chimed in, “You cannot pretend to be compassionate while misgendering people and denying them access to any and all spaces under your control.”
The diocese writes:
The Church’s teaching that our identities as male and female are established as part of God’s providential plan for humanity. … While there are obvious cultural and individual variations in how gender roles and personal qualities are expressed and accented, each person is called to a life of wholeness and integration, which in this context means an alignment between his or her gender identity and his or her sexual identity manifested at birth. …
A person’s “gender” is inseparable from biological sex. The Catechism states that “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul.” Therefore, while biological sex and gender—or the socio-cultural manifestation of sex as well as “psychological identity” —can be distinguished, they can never be separated.