Overview
- Meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to revise its Ethical and Religious Directives to prohibit gender-affirming interventions at Catholic health care institutions.
- The updated directives incorporate the bishops’ 2023 doctrinal note and 2024 Vatican guidance barring surgical or chemical procedures intended to alter sexual characteristics.
- Diocesan bishops retain authority over how and when the policy is enforced within their local health systems.
- The Catholic Health Association said its feedback was included and affirmed that Catholic providers will continue welcoming and treating patients who identify as transgender.
- With Catholic hospitals treating more than one in seven U.S. patients and major medical groups endorsing gender-affirming care, the move heightens access tensions; separately, the bishops issued a message opposing indiscriminate mass deportation.