Report Alleges Catholic Hospitals Linked To Transgender Surgeries, Abortions

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The largest Catholic health system in the nation has allegedly funded and performed transgender surgeries and other “gender-affirming” medical interventions, defying traditional Catholic teachings, according to an investigative report released to The Epoch Times.

The report by the Lepanto Institute, a Catholic research and education organization, released on June 12, exposes CommonSpirit Health, a Catholic entity, for its alleged performance and funding of transgender surgeries and therapies,” including prescribing and providing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to patients.

A promotional video accompanying the report asserts: “The transgender craze has seized the world by the throat and is choking the life out of the bedrock of civilization: the family. And this is happening right under the nose of the Vatican.”

In the 64-page exposé, “CommonSpirit and the Sex-Change Industry,” author Michael Hichborn, founder and president of the Lepanto Institute, explains the connections within the Catholic health network in the United States and its direct ties to the Vatican.

Hichborn, a self-described lifelong Catholic, said he is both “saddened” and “horrified” by the moral decline within factions of the Catholic Church, and wants “to make sure that Catholics are Catholics and that those who operate in the name of the Catholic Church do so in line with all of her teachings.”

He claims that these medical interventions are happening in “gross defiance” of official values held by the Catholic Church, which has traditionally rejected transgenderism, homosexuality, abortions, and contraception—all of which the report alleges CommonSpirit is promoting at dozens of hospitals and medical facilities in the U.S.

“In addition to performing sex-change operations, CommonSpirit provides employee benefits that cover sex-change operations, transgender hormone treatments, and even puberty blockers for kids,” according to the report.

While it’s not known if CommonSpirit Health has performed transgender surgeries on children, the use of puberty blockers suggests it is treating minors for gender dysphoria in some capacity, Hichborn told The Epoch Times.

“The horrifying thing when you start getting into the science of the puberty blockers and the transitional hormones, is they do permanent damage to these kids. They talk about how puberty blockers just kind of put a pause on puberty or pubertal development, and that’s a lie,” he said. “It doesn’t put a pause on it; it actually damages these kids to the point that many of them wind up being sterile.”

CommonSpirit Health derives its Catholic identity from the Catholic Health Care Federation whose authority is granted by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome, the report states.

“The only authority in the church that has the ability to judge the actions of CommonSpirit is the Vatican,” Hichborn told The Epoch Times. “Because CommonSpirit is a subsidiary of the Catholic Health Care Federation, it is subject only to the Pope and the Pope’s governing bodies in Rome.”

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 forms not only confirm that CommonSpirit Health benefits from religious exemption tax breaks, but that the organization is part of the Catholic Church, Hichborn said.

CommonSpirit has allegedly promoted the LGBT agenda including transgender ideology and transitioning children in its podcasts and at its conferences, has raised funds for sex-change surgical equipment, performed surgical sterilizations, and at least one of its hospitals has reportedly performed elective abortions, the report indicates.