Italian priest introduces pontiff to transgender Catholics seeking to join religious life
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Pope Francis has met the first openly-transgender diocesan hermit in the history of the Catholic Church, a dissident Catholic group seeking to normalize the LGBTQ+ lifestyle in the Catholic Church is reporting.
The pontiff met Br. Christian Matson, a biological female who medically transitioned and now identifies as a male, during an Oct. 23 meeting arranged by Italian priest Fr. Andrea Conocchia, pro-LGBTQ+ organization New Ways Ministry bragged on Wednesday.
Father Conocchia, who has previously brought groups of gender-confused people to the Vatican, also introduced Francis to four other transgender Catholics who previously attempted to join religious communities and the priesthood.
Matson was received by Bp. John Stowe, the notoriously pro-LGBTQ+ bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, in 2021, and took first vows as a religious hermit in August 2022. The biological woman is said to be the first openly-transgender diocesan hermit in the history of the Catholic Church.
On Pentecost Sunday 2024, Matson, who is also a Benedictine oblate, came out publicly as transgender – with the permission of Bp. Stowe.
"I am currently based in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky," Matson wrote in an email to friends and supporters. "I live in a hermitage at the top of a wooded hill, which I share with my German Shepherd rescue, Odie, and with the Blessed Sacrament, which was installed in my oratory shortly before Christmas."
Matson converted from Protestantism to Catholicism in 2010, after transitioning in college. "I'm Catholic," Matson said. "I became Catholic after I transitioned because of the Catholic understanding – the sacramental understanding – of the body, of creation, of the desirability of the visible unity of the church and primarily because of the Eucharist."
Before becoming a hermit, Matson tried to join the Jesuits going through a discernment process and speaking with several vocational directors between 2011 and 2018. The Jesuits deemed Matson an "excellent" candidate, but ultimately rejected him due to "medical history" as a "transgender man."
Reportedly, Matson's Jesuit spiritual director at the time would plead the applicant's case every year between 2015 and 2018 with the provincial leadership in New York, only to be met with rejection.
Pope Francis spoke briefly with the transgender group, shook their hands, thanked them, and blessed them, New Ways Ministry reported. The pontiff also received the book Trans Life and the Catholic Church Today (edited by theologians Nicolete Burbach and Lisa Sowle Cahill), along with personal letters from two of the group members.
Maxwell Kuzma, another biological female who transitioned to male, was also warmly received by the pontiff on the occasion. "Soy un hombre transgénero," ("I am a transgender man.") Kuzma told Francis as they shook hands.
"I am proud of myself for telling him that I am transgender in his native language, and equally proud that the Catholic Church has a pope who responds so warmly and pastorally to the transgender members of his flock," Kuzma remarked.
Kuzma also told Francis that he, like the pontiff, was a friend of Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit infamous for pushing the LGBTQ+ agenda in the Catholic Church.
"Meeting the pope was a full circle moment for me, an invitation to reflect on God's hand in my long and winding journey of identity," Kuzma reflected. "I felt the Holy Spirit moving in Rome, not just in the handshake of Francis but in the pilgrims filling the square and in the hopeful smiles of my transgender travel companions."
George White, a third member of the transgender group who met Francis, is a religion teacher at St. Paul's Catholic School in Leicester, UK. Reportedly, White felt called to the priesthood as a Salesian of Don Bosco.
However, while responses from the Salesians have been supportive, they were unable to admit White into the order due to the Church's current stance on transgender issues, the biological female revealed.
White, who claims to be the only openly-transgender religion teacher in a Catholic school in Britain, has recently authored an entire section on LGBT inclusion in British Catholic schools in a book titled Trans Life and the Catholic Church Today.
Leftist publication, the National Catholic Reporter, recently reported the story of James Pawlowicz, a woman by birth who later transitioned to the male gender, and went through a discernment process for eight months with the Jesuits.
However, when Pawlowicz's original identity was revealed to a vocation mentor, Pawlowicz received a call from the vocations director, who said: "You have to be born a male and remain a male to join religious life at all."
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.