This is not like that ...

This:

Photo of transsexual receiving communion - reportedly - 

at Pope's Holy Thursday Mass at a Roman prison with 

the following header:

Pope's Holy Thursday Jail Mass Communion to Transsexual

Blasts Wrong Impression Worldwide...

Is so not like this ...

Former Archbishop of San Francisco, George Niederauer, 

cited by Tradition in Action as a protegé of Benedict XVI,

gave Holy Communion to "genderf--k" 

'sisters of perpetual indulgence' in 2007.

Pewsitters condemns the alleged photo of a transsexual receiving Communion on the tongue from a priest during the Holy Father's visit to a Roman jail last week.  I don't know the source for the photo, but I am not surprised nor scandalized by it.  I post it because it is so not like what the second photo I used for this post turns out to be.

In the top photo is an anonymous person identified as transgender.  We don't know that for certain, nor do we know the circumstances surrounding the trans designation.  Ordinary people - even gay people - mistake transgender/transsexual as always something immoral or a variant of 'gay'.  Many consider it drag or transvestite and totally perverted.  Sadly - it's more complicated than that.

I hate it when people say the same sex attracted person suffers from homosexual inclination/same-sex-attraction, however, in the case of transgender persons, I believe there is a very deep degree of suffering.  That a transsexual person was given Holy Communion is certainly not a scandal.

That a transvestite-genderf--k-pretend-nun is given Holy Communion - that's a completely different scenario, and quite probably a type of liturgical/spiritual abuse, as well as a cause for real scandal.  

That said, Melinda Selmys writes about gender-dysphoria, and it is extremely helpful in understanding what all of this may be about.  Selmys' article is titled: "Is There a Place for the Transgendered in the Church?"

God knows there is - so does the Pope.  Giving Communion to a transsexual is definitely NOT the wrong impression for the world.  If that person confessed, was absolved of his/her sins - and one must assume he/she was - there is nothing wrong with that.  We don't know enough to pass judgement - we do not know the clinical diagnosis of strangers, unless they declare it publicly.

In the prayers for the Divine Mercy novena today, I brought all of those who struggle with some form of gender dysphoria to the font of Divine Mercy.  Jesus, I trust in you.

I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces ...
that vessel is this image with the signature, Jesus, I trust in You." By means of
this image, I shall be granting many graces to souls. (327, 742)