Gender

It will strike astute readers as unsurprising (and dispiriting) that today's critical questions surrounding gender and race were even more urgent for radical reformers throughout the 1800s.

Grace on the Margins: Some bishops seem to enjoy upping the ante on their anti-LGBTQI stance. But few have been as extreme or inventive as Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Springfield, Illinois, Diocese.

Commentary: I'd like to point out three areas of concern about the Congregation for Catholic Education's instruction, in hopes of challenging Catholics of all stripes to celebrate the God-given diversity of gender expression.

It was his brother's coming out as a gay man that would free Bishop Thomas Gumbleton from the stereotypes he had. Gumbleton, 89, discusses how to create a more just church and society for LGBT people. 

In a joint letter to Congress, the chairmen of three committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said they oppose the Equality Act because it would impose "sweeping regulations to the detriment of society."

Tiernan Brady of Equal Future, a coalition of 100 LGBT groups and Catholic religious from over 60 countries, said the youth synod is the "closest thing the church gets to a democratic process" and that it is an opportunity to discuss real challenges.

Religious hostility is a major challenge for the estimated 200 self-identified lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender refugees at Kakuma, which hosts almost 180,000 refugees from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.

Disputes over sex and gender have ripped apart the Protestant world and threaten to create schism among Catholics, but perhaps there's hope for a new Reformation about such issues, theologians and writers said in an Oct. 17 panel discussion at Fordham University.