Nope, this isn’t satire.
Brother Christian Matson, a diocesan hermit in Kentucky, formally came out as transgender this week with the permission of his bishop, John Stowe. As the Religious News Service (RNS) reported, Matson, a woman who has been living as a man, will be able to remain a monk despite the fact that she’s very obviously and confidently contradicting the biblical principles on gender and identity.
“This Sunday, Pentecost 2024, I’m planning to come out publicly as transgender,” Matson told Religion News Service on May 17.
So yes, the church was alright with the announcement and her “identity.”
Matson, a biological woman, decided to identify as a man in college, reports indicate. Four years later, Matson converted to Catholicism. After going through a vocational discernment following his masters degree and a Ph.D, Matson felt called to work in a religious setting.
She was denied, rightfully so in my opinion, by many bishops and churches across the nation but kept trying to get in. She even co-started a nonprofit called the Catholic Artist Connection. It’s aim was to be a “religious community of and for artists — artists who are living together, (operating) in the church through their art, and ministering to the loneliness and sense of precarity many artists experience.”
Matson, having taken private vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, sent a letter to Bishop Stowe in 2020 after seeing how vocal Stowe was about Catholics being more pro-LGBTQ and asked to be sponsored by the Kentucky-based bishop. When Stowe accepted, Matson said she felt “an enormous relief,” adding “I was in tears. I felt my hope revive.”
For context, Matson was accepted as a diocesan hermit. This role, traditionally, doesn’t have a gender distinction and is more of an external and secluded role that spends most days in quiet prayer. Here’s what Stowe said about Matson’s involvement:
My willingness to be open to him is because it’s a sincere person seeking a way to serve the church. Hermits are a rarely used form of religious life … but they can be either male or female. Because there’s no pursuit of priesthood or engagement in sacramental ministry, and because the hermit is a relatively quiet and secluded type of vocation, I didn’t see any harm in letting him live this vocation.
While there may be no “harm” in Stowe’s eyes, he’s clearly tip-toeing on what is and isn’t appropriate for someone in an official role in the Catholic Church. Generally speaking, I assume the goal is to have employees or a team of individuals who love the Lord for how he made them and honor His word, even the words the He says about gender and how there’s only two of them.
Yet, in “2023, the Vatican doctrine department ruled that transgender people may be baptized and serve as witnesses at Catholic weddings, so long as doing so ‘doesn’t cause scandal among the faithful,’” RNS reported.
It’s rather difficult to watch our nation, and religion in our nation, cave to the woke mob. This transgender monk is no exception to that.
