Transgender Hermit Announcement Poses Questions About Church’s Teaching on Religious Life, by Joe Bukuras 

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Christian Matson Photo: Public Domain

By Matthew McDonald, Joe Bukuras, EWTN News, May 24, 2024

Joseph Bukuras is a freelance writer and law student. He is a former journalist for Catholic News Agency… Matthew McDonald Matthew McDonald is a staff reporter for The National Catholic Register and the editor of New Boston Post. He lives in Massachusetts.

Bishop John Stowe’s willingness to approve the hermit’s profession raises issues that might warrant Vatican intervention.

A hermit in Kentucky who publicly identified as transgender this past weekend has prompted questions about how the Catholic Church should deal with such cases in religious life given the Church’s opposition to what Pope Francis has called “gender ideology.”

The announcement has also raised questions about how the hermit, a female who identifies as a man, got religious training at a Benedictine monastery for men.

Brother Christian Matson, the hermit’s religious name, went public about Matson’s gender identity in a Religion News Service story published May 19, which was based on interviews with Matson and with Bishop John Stowe, a Conventual Franciscan who leads the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, where the hermit lives. ….