- Feb 5, 2002
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"And God created them male and female," the Book of Genesis reads. (Photo: Lightstock)
In this raw, emotionally overwrought moment in our public life, few topics generate more passion than gender ideology and the associated practice of gender “transition.” Several Catholic leaders have tried to address the ideology and the practice calmly, informed by science, philosophy, theology, and pastoral experience. The most recent is Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of “Toledo in America,” as the Vatican’s Annuario Pontificio designates the Ohio diocese centered on the Glass City.
I’m perhaps a suspect witness in the case of Bishop Thomas, as we’ve been friends for almost thirty years. We met when then-Monsignor Thomas was a Vatican official of the then-Congregation for Bishops and serving as a spiritual director at the North American College, my Roman home when I was preparing Witness to Hope, the first volume of my John Paul II biography. No Philadelphia native of my previous acquaintance more thoroughly falsified the smackdown of Philly as the “City of Brotherly Shove.”
Msgr. Thomas and I often sat together during Evening Prayer at the College, two former choir boys enjoying hymn singing and chant, perhaps recalling the innocent days when some notes (like the murderous high B-flat in Bruckner’s Ecce Sacerdos Magnus) weren’t so difficult to reach. Msgr. Thomas also paved the way for me to meet with his boss, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, who told me that, when he was administering the oath of secrecy to new members of his congregational staff, he gave them a picture of John Paul II collapsing into the arms of his secretary after being shot on May 13, 1981: a reminder that helping the Church find good bishops is a serious business, as the man chosen might be called to give his life for his flock. In good times and trying times, Msgr. Thomas was always a consummate gentleman, a faithful friend, and a happy, holy priest.
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