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Dear Fr. Kurylowicz and Friends,
Here is the website of OII, our Organization Intersex International.
http://www.intersexualite.org/usa.html
We are inclusive and welcome transgendered and transsexual persons, and anyone else, to collaborate with us in our mission to educate everyone about human sex differentiation. This education is what is necessary to establish a scientific reality-based global standard for universal human rights.
Godhead's Love for the Finite Person in Judeo-Catholic 'Bridal' and Love Mysticism
The Person is infinitely more than the sum of their physical parts, and our bodies are themselves infinitely complex. However in spite of our metaphysical and physical complexity, in Catholic theology the core revelation of Godhead to us, and for us, is extremely simple. GOD IS LOVE. This God has created us out of love, to love and to be loved. To our God-Who-Is-Love, each of us is precious and lovable, JUST AS WE ARE. We are His beloved 'OTHER', the object of His love. We infinite number of finite beings are actually attractive to God, drawing-out the endless and infinite expressions of His love, which create and maintain the infinite number of spiritual and material worlds. And when we misbehave with our minute independence and get fouled-up in the knotty consequences of abusing our own free will, He comes to untangle us. He continuously and personally comes to us and for us, joining us in all of the hells of our own making, just to save us from the ultimate spiritual consequence of our sin, which is loveless SEPARATION FROM GOD AND OTHERS!
Sexism is Specifically Rejected in the Gospel of Jesus Christ
Is this Ultimate Source and Transcendent Saving Godhead a Being who would reject whole classes of people because they were not physically typical males or females? What a ridiculous proposition! Sexism cannot be reconciled with authentic Catholic Christian theology.
The New Testament declares that: 'In Christ there is no Greek or Jew' . NO RACISM. 'In Christ...there is no slave or free'. NO CLASSISM. ' In Christ...there is no MALE OR FEMALE.' NO SEXISM.
What part of this is not perfectly clear? In 'The World' these divisive distinctions are certainly there, but Christians are called to be 'in the world, but not OF the World'. God's love In Christ should empower us to transcend all divisive 'worldliness', rising above all impersonal prejudices to know and love one another as the uniquely lovable individuals that we truly are. In Christ's divine love, we should experiance that same holy attraction for each other, that attracts God Himself to us!
The universally redeeming Love of God in Christ is the Gospel 'Good News' of the Catholic Apostolic Christian Revelation. It is the primary mission of the Church to deliver this Good News, and to LIVE THIS LOVE FOR HUMANITY. How is the Church's mission, both Its message and ministry of Christ's Love, served by racism, classism and sexism? Today's Catholic Communion is a great global force of opposition to racism and classism. But sadly the Church is still crippled by the sexism of various cultures, now abetted by newer versions of the old post-Victorian era pseudo-sciences of sex. Every area of the Church's ministry, from the work of dogmatic and moral theologians, to the welfare workers in the streets, is impacted by this problem. There is a profound discordance between the universal-saving-grace inclusiveness of the Gospel Message, and the exclusiveness of the Church's recent practices, which all but demonize any and all humans percieved as 'other' than somehow ideally male or female.
The LBGT&Q communities each have their own issues with the Church, but the question of how the Church acknowledges or ignores, accepts or rejects intersexed (including naturally "sex-reversed") people, is actually the one question that is at the very heart of its dogmatic theology of the universal salvation offered to humanity through Jesus Christ. By focusing on the question of same-sex behavior / acts as an issue of moral theology, the Church is avoiding the more profound question of what it is to BE A SAVE-able HUMAN, in dogmatic theology.
The Irreducible and Unavoidable Question
The question is at its essence about WHO or WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN, and therefore to have a claim to human rights, both in the mundane order of humankind and in the divine order of Godhead.
In India they say that if you have a million rupees, all of your ten rupee problems are solved. All of the related ten rupee behavioral problems in Catholic moral theology will be solved when the erroneous simplistic 19th Century pseudo-scientific view of human sexual differentiation is corrected.
In dogmatic theology, the question of what it means to be human is essential to the Church's doctrine of salvation. If God made only males or females (or males and females), then who has created intersex people, and are they still human and save-able through the once-and-all-sufficient self-sacrifice of God as Jesus Christ?
Are intersex people entirely fit as humans to recieve the Sacraments or to take Holy Orders? If intersex people are not deemed fit, and do not share in the religious rights of all other Catholics to worship and serve Jesus in His Church, why not ?
There is the challange. This is the real battle. Are the intersexed, including naturally sex-reversed people, fully human and loved by God? If naturally sex-reversed XY women exist, some of whom can even naturally concieve and bear normal children, what is the implication for other XY women? If naturally sex-reversed XX men exist, if countless millions of complex Human Wonders of atypical sex differentiation exist, what is the implication of their existence for LBGT and Q people? The information war of liberation, which finally frees intersexed and sex-reversed humanity from its prison of shamed silence and societal denial, will also begin the liberation of the rest of humanity from the cruel and impersonal oppression of every other form of sexism. We do not need to find a 'gay gene' or a region of the brain to blame for 'Gender Identity Disorder'. We do not need to understand the minutia of genetics or the psychology of Freud or Jung to simply acknowledge that there are millions of physically sexually atypical humans alive today, who present a countless number of 'intersex' variations...too many to ever be cataloged or understood.
This is the million rupee truth about the human condition, which puts an end to all of the little ten rupee lies about our simplistic sexual dimorphism. The logical side-effect of successfully meeting this challange to educate Catholic leaders about the reality of human intersex, will be a profound impact on almost every other sex and gender issue facing the Church, in the realms of moral and dogmatic theology today. Most important is the task of reaching the Magisterium with this truth about our wonderfully diverse humanity, this truth that can set us free, and also free the Church from the sexism that oppresses it now.
This is a service provided by the
Organisation Intersex International
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