Transgender people can’t be baptized unless they’ve ‘repented,’ Catholic diocese says

A Catholic diocese in Michigan has instructed its pastors to deny baptism, confirmation and other sacraments to transgender and nonbinary people unless they have “repented” — possibly the first diocese in the United States to issue such a sweeping policy about those who identify with a gender other than their sex assigned at birth.

The guidance issued by the Diocese of Marquette also stipulates that transgender people may not receive Communion, in which Catholics believe the body and blood of Jesus Christ are truly present. In most circumstances, they cannot receive the anointing of the sick, which is meant to provide physical or spiritual healing to those who are seriously ill. The guidance was issued in July but only recently sparked a debate after a prominent priest and advocate for LGBTQ Catholics shared it on Twitter.

“The experience of incongruence in one’s sexual identity is not sinful if it does not arise from the person’s free will, nor would it stand in the way of Christian Initiation,” reads the document. “However, deliberate, freely chosen and manifest behaviors to redefine one’s sex do constitute such an obstacle.”

The backlash may portend a growing clash between the church, which teaches that people should accept their sex assigned at birth, and a younger generation more likely to identify as something other than cisgender and less likely to believe that being transgender is morally wrong. One in 6 adults in Generation Z identifies as LGBTQ, according to survey data released by Gallup in February.

Some theologians said the new rule may contradict canon law. “There’s nobody who approaches baptism from a state of perfection,” Jennifer Haselberger, a former chancellor for canonical affairs in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, said. “The presumption is the opposite. You come to baptism as a sinner, and original sin is forgiven you.”