The Vatican and Pope Francis are declaring that trans people can be baptized in the Catholic Church and serve as godparents as long as “there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandal or confusion among the faithful,” the Guardian reports.
A document approved last month by Pope Francis was published Wednesday and states that “even if they have undergone hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, [a trans person] can receive baptism under the conditions as other faithful”.
It was published as a response to questions that were sent to Pope Francis by conservative cardinals around the world asking him to affirm that same-sex couples cannot be blessed.
The discretion will be placed in the hands of local priests, who are encouraged to exercise “pastoral prudence” when deciding if trans people can be godparents and be included in baptisms and weddings, which the document says they are allowed to serve as witnesses at.
This pronouncement reverses a ruling from 2015 in which a Spanish bishop was firmly told by the Vatican trans…
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