U.S. bishops pass directive forbidding transgender surgeries at Catholic hospitals
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Mercy Health Perrysburg Hospital in Perrysburg, Ohio. / Credit: Wikimedia CommonsCNA Staff, Nov 13, 2025 / 13:20 pm (CNA).Catholic hospitals in the United States are explicitly forbidden from carrying out transgender-related surgeries on individuals who believe themselves to be the opposite sex, the U.S. bishops said this week.The prelates, gathered at the plenary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore, voted on Nov. 12 to direct hospitals to "preserve the integrity of the human body" when treating individuals with gender dysphoria.Such individuals often seek surgery to make their bodies conform to that of the opposite sex. But in updated guidance, the bishops said that while Catholic health care providers must employ "all appropriate resources" to mitigate the suffering of such patients, they can use "only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body."The new rule makes into explicit USCCB policy what the bishops expressed in a doct...
Mercy Health Perrysburg Hospital in Perrysburg, Ohio. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Nov 13, 2025 / 13:20 pm (CNA).
Catholic hospitals in the United States are explicitly forbidden from carrying out transgender-related surgeries on individuals who believe themselves to be the opposite sex, the U.S. bishops said this week.
The prelates, gathered at the plenary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore, voted on Nov. 12 to direct hospitals to "preserve the integrity of the human body" when treating individuals with gender dysphoria.
Such individuals often seek surgery to make their bodies conform to that of the opposite sex. But in updated guidance, the bishops said that while Catholic health care providers must employ "all appropriate resources" to mitigate the suffering of such patients, they can use "only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body."
The new rule makes into explicit USCCB policy what the bishops expressed in a doctrinal note in 2023 when they said Catholic providers must not take part in procedures that "aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex."
The revised directives were hailed by the Catholic Health Association, which in a Nov. 12 statement said that the rules "reaffirm the Church's teaching on the dignity of all persons and their right to life from conception to natural death."
The revisions "clarify and affirm current clinical practices" and "are consistent with Catholic health care practice that does not allow for medical interventions that alter sexual characteristics absent an underlying condition," the group said.
The organization said Catholic health care providers would continue to treat those who identify as transgender "with dignity and respect."
In their guidelines the bishops noted that it can be "morally permissible" to "remove or to suppress the function of one part of the body for the sake of the body as a whole," though only in very limited circumstances, such as when a body part is diseased.
In forbidding medical practices that "aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex," the bishops cited the Vatican's 2024 document Dignitas Infinita, which in part disallows "all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman."
The USCCB's guidance comes several months after the Trump administration moved to prohibit transgender procedures performed on children at U.S. hospitals.
Multiple U.S. hospitals earlier this year ended their child transgender programs under pressure from the Trump administration. One watchdog group determined that doctors in the U.S. performed around 14,000 "gender transitions" on underage children between 2019 and 2023.
In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prohibit hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements from performing transgender operations or providing transgender drugs to anyone under the age of 19.
An EWTN News analysis in 2024, meanwhile, showed that nearly 150 Catholic hospitals across the United States provided children with transgender drugs or performed gender-transition surgeries on them between 2019 and 2023.
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Paul Scherz briefs bishops about artificial intelligence at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 12, 2025. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNABaltimore, Maryland, Nov 13, 2025 / 13:50 pm (CNA).The U.S. bishops received a briefing on the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) from Paul Scherz at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore.Scherz, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, has studied the ethics of AI. At the Nov. 12 meeting, Scherz highlighted some of his findings and shared how the bishops should approach the technology within their dioceses.AI technologies "have great potential to contribute to human flourishing and the common good," Scherz said. "But note that it would be a mistake to describe these programs as intelligent in the same way that humans are.""They lack consciousness and any kind of subjective relationship to the world...
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null / Credit: Wirestock Creators/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Nov 13, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).According to a new survey, engagement among U.S. adults who identify as Catholic is strong, especially among the youngest adults, and there is growing trust in the Church after the fallout of the clergy sexual abuse crisis of the early 2000s.In July, Leadership Roundtable commissioned a polling firm to conduct a national survey of Catholics in the U.S. in order to inform Church leaders of problems as well as strengths within the Catholic Church since the sexual abuse crisis came to national attention in 2002 and the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was composed to address it.Researchers composed a 72-question survey and divided respondents into three groups: the Faithful (1,541 respondents), the Occasional (472 respondents), and the Disengaged (1,020). The Faithful said they attend Mass at least monthly, the Occasional said they go a few times a year, and the Disengaged...
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Representatives of the Roman Curia and the German bishops' conference meet to discuss the proposed Synodal Conference statute at the Vatican on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. / Credit: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz/KoppEWTN News, Nov 13, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).Representatives of the Roman Curia and the German bishops' conference met on Wednesday to continue discussions on the proposed statute of a "synodal conference" for the Church in Germany, marking the fourth such dialogue since talks began in 2022.The meeting, held in Rome on Nov. 12, took place in what a joint press statement described as an "honest, open, and constructive atmosphere," with both sides discussing various aspects of the planned synodal body's character, composition, and competencies.No further details of the encounter were shared. The proposed conference concept represents the latest iteration of plans to establish a permanent body in Germany in the wake of the controversial Synodal Way, following repeated inte...
