The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved new guidance on Wednesday that explicitly prohibits Catholic hospitals from performing transgender-related surgeries or providing other medical interventions that alter sexual characteristics.
The directive to update the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” was approved in a vote with 206 in favor, eight voting no and seven abstaining, reported the National Catholic Reporter.
The directive states that because “creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,” Catholic health care services must not offer surgical, hormonal or genetic procedures that aim to change the fundamental order of the human body rather than restore it. This includes gender-transition surgeries and non-therapeutic forms of genetic engineering.
The updated policy formalizes what the bishops taught in a 2023 doctrinal note, which instructed Catholic providers not to participate in procedures intended to transform a person’s sexual characteristics.
The Catholic Health Association welcomed the revisions, saying in a Nov. 12 statement that the changes reaffirm the dignity of all persons while clarifying existing clinical practice.
The guidance emphasized “the inherent dignity of the human person,” and said that individuals “must be respected and protected regardless of the nature of the person’s health problem or social status.”