Bishops should discuss and act on a recent report that Catholic hospitals provided “pediatric gender reassignment services” to patients aged 17 and younger, two bishops recently told EWTN News.

Their comments come as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops holds its annual fall meeting in Baltimore, which began Monday.

As the Register reported last monthon October 8, a medical watchdog organization called Do No Harm published a database finding that approximately 150 Catholic hospitals in the United States provided “pediatric sex reassignment services” between 2019 and 2023, including 33 Catholic hospitals that performed so-called sex reassignment surgeries on minors.

Bishop James Conley, who leads the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, told the Register last week that he had discussed the report privately with hospital administrators, Catholic doctors and bishops of dioceses including Catholic hospitals. are mentioned in the Do No Harm database.

Although the topic is not on the agenda for the four-day meeting of U.S. bishops, Archbishop Conley said he hopes the bishops will at least talk about it privately.

“We need to discuss this. We have an obligation in particular to protect the most vulnerable – and particularly children and minors. Because this is just another form of child abuse,” said the bishop, who last week published a column on the subject in his diocesan newspaper, the Southern Nebraska Registerwhich was also republished by the Register.

More than 520 minors received care at Catholic hospitals in about 40 states during that five-year period, according to the data. More than 150 children underwent surgeries to alter their appearance to resemble the opposite sex, while more than 380 children received puberty blockers or hormone therapies.

Spokespeople for several Catholic health care organizations mentioned in the database declined to confirm or deny that their hospitals performed chemical or surgical procedures that contradicted Church teaching on human sexuality. But they have defended the care they provide to patients, including those who identify as transgender.

Proponents of gender transition say that some people become trapped in a body that does not reflect their identity, and that refusing treatment needlessly prolongs or deepens their mental suffering.

The Catholic Church teaches that a person’s gender is chosen by God and cannot be changed, and that attempting to do so harms them.

“Beyond the understandable difficulties that individuals may encounter, young people need to be helped to accept their own bodies as they were created,” Pope Francis said in his 2016 apostolic exhortation. Amoris Laetitia (The Gospel of Love).

In 2023, the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine issued guidelines that said“Catholic health services shall not perform any procedures, whether surgical or chemical, intended to change the sexual characteristics of a human body to those of the opposite sex or participate in the development of such procedures. »

Bishop Conley’s diocese does not have a Catholic hospital in the Do No Harm database. But he said the report troubled him because he believed such procedures harmed the patients they were intended to help.

“All the studies indicate that instead of offering surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone therapies, which cause permanent damage, we must support these young people and help them better understand the donation of their biological sex,” said Bishop Conley.

Bishop Thomas Daly, who leads the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, said EWTN News every night last month, he hopes bishops will talk about the gender reassignment database at regional bishops’ meetings and perhaps discuss it as a group at a future meeting.

“It’s not something that’s going to go away, and so there’s certainly a time factor,” Bishop Daly said. said during a television interview on October 30.

Bishop Daly also spoke with the Register last month. During this interview, he emphasized that bishops are limited in what they can do regarding Catholic hospitals since they do not manage them. A local bishop can remove the ability of a Catholic institution in his diocese to call itself Catholic, but he otherwise has no direct authority over Catholic hospitals.

Bishop Conley told the Register that he hopes the bishops, through private conversations, can persuade leaders of Catholic hospitals not to participate in procedures that deliberately alter sexual appearance.

“I am a strong proponent of sitting down with the administration of a hospital that is in the person’s diocese and discussing these issues,” Bishop Conley said. “The problem is that these hospital systems have become so large and the administration of these hospitals is very complex, so it is very difficult for a bishop to understand who is actually making the decisions. »

The Nebraska bishop told the Register that trying to change bodily features doesn’t help people dismayed by their gender identity.

“Obviously there are emotional challenges in these people’s lives. But one does not deal with emotional and mental challenges by encouraging something that has proven not to have favorable results and does not solve their challenges or problems, it can cause irreparable damage to their body and mental health “, he said.

Bishop Conley recounted attending a Catholic Medical Association conference in Orlando, Fla., in September, where seven adults spoke about their gender transitions as teenagers and their detransitions as adults. adult.

“They shared their testimony, which was very emotional and heartbreaking in many ways, because they regretted the decision they made when they were teenagers. But a beautiful and powerful testimony and a courageous testimony of their brokenness but their desire to be whole,” Bishop Conley said.

Dr. Patrick Hunter, a pediatrician with a master’s degree in bioethics who has studied gender transition for about 10 years, also spoke at the conference.

He told the Register that Catholic hospitals aren’t the only concern when it comes to gender transition.

“I don’t think any hospital should do that, let alone a Catholic hospital,” Hunter said. “Any evidence that anyone could benefit from is of poor quality. Low quality means we cannot be sure of the results. And we are receiving more and more reports of harm and regret that should concern us all. »

He added: “When we don’t know what we are doing, why are we doing it? I fear this is socio-politically motivated and not in the interests of the people who are suffering. We need to find a better way to care for them.

Hunter called gender transition a bad medicine.

“If this had nothing to do with gender and sex, and frankly politics, everyone would be angry. You do What has WHOand you don’t know what’s going to happen? Hunter said. “Historically, we have protected vulnerable populations. It’s a good company that does that. Now we are taking advantage of it for social and political goals.”