Vatican says people CANNOT choose or change genders and calls transgenderism a bid to 'annihilate nature'

It's a sad day when you have to look to a church for realism

The Vatican has released an official document which had called transgenderism a bid to 'annihilate nature'.

The text called 'Male And Female He Created Them' has also said that people can't choose or change their genders and insists on the sexual 'complementarity' of men and women to make babies.

The publication of the documents comes during LGBT Pride Month and was quickly denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people.

Advocacy group New Ways Ministry said it would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm.

The new 'guidance' was intended to help Catholic teachers, parents, students and clergy address what the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education called an 'educational crisis' in the field of sex education.

It called for a 'path of dialogue' and listening on the issue of 'gender theory' in education.

But even priestly advocates for LGBT Catholics noted that the text appeared to have relied entirely on previous papal pronouncements, Vatican documents and philosophers and theologians.

'The real-life experiences of LGBT people seem entirely absent from this document,' said Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote a book on improving Catholic Church outreach to the LGBT community, titled Building A Bridge.

'We should welcome the congregation's call to dialogue and listening on gender, and I hope that conversation will now begin.'

Pope Francis has repeatedly argued the position that people cannot choose their genders.

According to Associated Press the document represents the first attempt to put the Vatican's position, first articulated fully by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2012 speech, into a comprehensive, official text.

The document called for a new alliance among families, schools and society to offer a 'positive and prudent sexual education' in Catholic schools so children learn the 'full original truth of masculinity and femininity'.

It called gender fluidity a symptom of the 'confused concept of freedom' and 'momentary desires' that characterise post-modern culture.

It rejected terms such as 'intersex' and 'transgender' and said the purpose of the biological 'complementarity' of the male and female sex organs was to ensure procreation.

Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry, said such concepts are outdated, misinformed and ignore contemporary science on factors beyond visible genitalia that determine gender.

'Gender is also biologically determined by genetics, hormones and brain chemistry - things not visible at birth,' Mr DeBernardo said in a statement.

'People do not choose their gender, as the Vatican claims, they discover it through their lived experiences.'

He said the Catholic Church should encourage this process of discovery, saying it's 'a process by which individuals discover the wonderful way that God has created them'.

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Female Physician Calls Out Planned Parenthood President: Abortion Isn’t ‘Care’

In a tweet over the weekend on her Twitter page, female physician and Senior Policy Advisor for The Catholic Association Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D. called out Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen, M.D. on abortion, saying, “Abortion isn’t ‘care.’”

“Abortion isn’t ‘care’, [sic]” wrote Dr. Grazie Christie in a tweet. “[I]t’s the ending of a human’s life. #HydeAmendment protects Americans from paying for killing of innocents.”

Dr. Christie’s tweet came in response to a tweet by Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen, M.D., who wrote on June 8, 2019:

“‘Supporting Hyde isn’t good policy or politics.’ -- Kelley Robinson, Executive Director of @PPact

“We must fight for a world where all people are able to access safe, legal abortion care—regardless of how much money they make. #BeBoldEndHyde”

The Planned Parenthood president’s tweet included a link to a piece by “The Cut” titled “Why the Debate Over the Hyde Amendment Is Back – and What It Means.” The piece suggests, in part, that the Hyde Amendment “has made it so that women who want to end a pregnancy but rely on Medicaid — disproportionately, women of color — have to choose between paying out of pocket for abortion services, or carrying a pregnancy to term, unless they meet the three narrow exceptions.”

As reported by CNSNews.com, Dr. Christie addressed a comment by Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen, M.D. last week in a similar fashion, writing in a tweet, “ABORTION DOESN’T IMPROVE A MOTHERS HEALTH.”

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With the market making parental leave routine, who needs Congress?

by Jeff Jacoby

IT ISN'T the job of the federal government to provide, mandate, or encourage paid leave for new parents, and there was a time when Republican politicians would have said so. That was long ago, when the GOP was still the party of fiscal sobriety and limited government. Alas, Republicans today are as wedded as Democrats to the belief that anything desirable must come from Washington, even if it would be better left to state and local discretion, or kept in private hands altogether.

Expanding the welfare state to encompass paid parental leave is the latest example of this phenomenon. President Trump has endorsed the idea in his State of the Union addresses, and his proposed 2020 budget calls for providing "at least" six weeks of paid leave for new mothers and fathers. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, several Republican senators are pushing a scheme to fund paid leave for working parents through the Social Security Administration, at an estimated cost of $10 billion or more each year.

The legislation, versions of which have been sponsored by Marco Rubio of Florida, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Mitt Romney of Utah, is offered as a response to complaints that the United States is the only industrialized nation without a law mandating paid parental leave. Exactly why that should trouble Republicans who ordinarily regard American exceptionalism as an admirable quality isn't clear. Nor is it clear that the absence of a federal policy should be seen as evidence of a national problem.

As Cato Institute scholar Vanessa Brown Calder points out, studies indicate that a large majority of working mothers are already offered paid maternity leave by their employers. Between 1961 and 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the percentage of women with access to paid leave to care for new children soared from just 16 percent to more than 61 percent. More private employers than ever before offer paid leave for new parents, including all 20 of the nation's largest corporations. Paid leave for new fathers, once unheard-of, is increasingly common.

In short, the want of a federal law compelling or facilitating paid leave has not kept private employers from supplying it. And if any federal boost were needed, Republicans can already point to the 2017 tax-reform law, which not only cut corporate income tax rates but also added an explicit tax credit for companies that make paid leave available to lower-wage workers.

Nevertheless, Rubio, Romney, Ernst and other Republicans are lobbying for their paid-leave plan, which would allow working parents to collect Social Security benefits for 12 weeks after a baby's birth. In exchange, they would have to either delay their eventual retirement for 25 weeks, or retire without a delay but with a cut in benefits. The plan's boosters claim that it would pay for itself without new taxes or borrowing, a win-win for all.

"This is something entirely based upon the principle of personal responsibility," says Romney. No, that's exactly what it's not based on. Rubio has described the proposal as "a consistent application of Social Security's original principle ... to the challenges of today." That too flips reality upside-down.

If anything is fundamental to the Social Security model, it is that retirement benefits must be earned. Workers pay into Social Security throughout their career; they become eligible to take money out only when they retire. "Contributions first, benefits later," economist Veronica de Rugy emphasizes. "Using Social Security to pay for paid leave would turn the contribution-then-benefits pattern on its head. Benefits happen first in this case, then contributions (supposedly) come later."

That is not the "principle of personal responsibility." It's the principle of J. Wellington Wimpy, the cartoon character who would "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The Republican senators would like to invite new parents to enjoy a paid-leave hamburger courtesy of Social Security today, but not have to pay for it until 30 or more years of Tuesdays have elapsed.

That would be dubious even if Social Security's finances were as stable as the Rock of Gibraltar. But Social Security is slipping down the slope to insolvency.

Already it pays out more each year than it collects — its negative cash flow last year was $80 billion, which the Treasury had to cover by borrowing. On present trends, the Social Security trustees recently warned, the system will be depleted by 2034. If the trust funds are now to be tapped for parental-leave benefits in addition to retirement, they will be depleted even faster, and still more money will have to be borrowed each year to cover the shortfall. That is just another way of saying that even more money will have to be extracted from future taxpayers.

One estimate cited by de Rugy puts the added 10-year cost of a parental-leave option at $114 billion. With Social Security already under extreme stress, requiring it to cut checks to yet another population of beneficiaries could hardly be more reckless. And once "hamburgers today, payment next Tuesday" goes into effect for new parents, it will be only a matter of time until other lawmakers want to draw on Social Security for other worthy beneficiaries, and then others — always with the assurance that the program will pay for itself and require no taxes.

Paid leave for new parents is an appealing idea. So appealing, in fact, that more and more American employers are making it a standard element of their employees' compensation. Entangling that process with Social Security is not likely to make anything better. It's all but guaranteed to make Social Security worse.

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The ballot box is a great refuge from political correctness

Every time this nation goes to the polls, I’m taken aback by the sheer brutality of the conflict. This is a gladiatorial battle that never fails to deliver victors and vanquished, in the process exposing the flaws and foibles of an imperfect humanity.

To the victorious flow the accolades and the spoils of office. As soon as the direction of the battle becomes apparent, sycophants magically materialise to declare their undying allegiance to the new emperor and his regime. Meanwhile, the conquered are left to wander dazed amid the carnage in search of a narrative that explains the magnitude of the loss to their dispirited and dwindling supporters. It is a blood sport played to the death.

On the other hand, I believe a federal election is one of the few times you can hear the Australian people speaking honestly about their fears and aspirations. And last month there was an almighty disconnect between the mood of the Australian people as measured by the polls and as realised by the election. This is the same issue that surrounded the 2016 US presidential election and perhaps even the Brexit vote.

I think that a shy, silent majority – the non-combatants in the culture wars – are increasingly loath to speak honestly about their voting intentions. People have been socially conditioned to give only politically correct responses. We no longer say what we feel; we say what we think is the right thing to say. But in the quiet anonymity of the polling booth, a different logic is unleashed that speaks to our fears and aspirations.

To the majority of Australians it doesn’t seem unreasonable to say, for example, “I understand we need to take action on climate change – but what action should be taken, at what cost and for what benefit?” I don’t think the Australian people are questioning the logic of climate change, but I do think they believe they’re entitled to an answer.

This issue is opening up a division within the nation. Inner-city knowledge workers, the globally connected, those whose livelihood isn’t dependent upon mining, passionately assert the need for this nation to renounce coal mining. In the swish streets of South Yarra and Woollahra, so-called “green credentials” are an important social decal, rather like the badge of a Mercedes-Benz.

But in the regions, especially in northern Queensland where inner-city thinking isn’t as omnipotent as it is in the southern states, it’s a different story. In towns connected to the Bowen Basin, for example, there are far fewer jobs in knowledge industries. They also have fewer of the tenured, tax-exempt public sector jobs, replete with defined benefits retirement schemes, that abound inside the capital cities’ goat cheese curtain.

What they do have are well-paid jobs in mining that underpin a way of life that is equal to – many say better than – that of the inner city. I suspect that the regions also mightily resent being lectured to by those they perceive to be minimally affected by the very policies they profess. And so, when a pollster calls to ask about voting intentions in the regions, what spills forth isn’t necessarily the truth. The truth comes out on polling day, as it does in the US and UK.

Rather than focusing on the divisions, though, we need to find a way forward. My concern is that I can’t see either side giving ground in what has become an ideological battle underpinning the way we live now. But then, this really is the job of leadership: to galvanise the nation and to navigate a path to sustainable prosperity for all Australians.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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