{P} ope Francis has yet again ruffled the feathers of conservatives everywhere. The Vatican recently published a document affirming that transgender individuals can receive baptism and serve as godparents in the church. Much like the last papal statement from Pope Francis regarding the blessing of same-sex unions, the actual text remains vague on firm answers and opens the door to further questions, leaving much up to “pastoral prudence.”

On October 31, the Vatican published “Risposte del Dicastero a S.E. Mons. Negri” (trans. “Dicastery responses to H.E. Msgr. Negri”), in response to a July 14 letter from Monsignor José Negri, bishop of Santo Amaro in Brazil, which contained questions regarding the possible participation in the sacrament of baptism by transgender persons, among others. The original response was published in Italian, as is typical for such documents. An unofficial translation is available here, which this article quotes.

The document responds to six questions in particular, but the first two have received the most coverage by major news outlets, so I will focus on them here:

(1) Can a transsexual person be baptized?

(2) Can a transgender person be a godparent or godmother?

The document itself does not reply to any these questions with a simple “Yes” or “No,” but rather an evasive “Maybe.” In some cases there are certain factors that would allow for the possibility of specific individuals to receive particular sacraments or participate in the administration of others.

It must be noted, again, that — as was the case with the Vatican publication on blessing same-sex unions — church doctrine has not been changed. Letters dispatched from the dicastery, a collection of administrative offices of the Roman Curia, do not and never can hold the same kind of authority enjoyed by sources such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law. The limits of dicastery authority are particularly revealed in matters of prudence. Clerics are free to give bad advice, offer errant analyses, and misapply universal principles to specific situations.

So, with this important caveat in mind, what does the dicastery document actually say?

In response to the first question, the document states: “A transsexual — who had also undergone hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgery — can receive baptism, under the same conditions as other believers, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or disorientation among the faithful.”

The qualifier is crucial — the church has continuously held conditions of baptism that are to be applied to all believers. According to canon law (865 §1), “for an adult to be baptized, the person must have manifested the intention to receive baptism, have been instructed sufficiently about the truths of the faith and Christian obligations, and have been tested in the Christian life through the catechumenate. The adult is also to be urged to have sorrow for personal sins.”

As to the second question, “Can a transgender person be a godparent or godmother?” canon law has the following to say:

Insofar as possible, a person to be baptized is to be given a sponsor who assists an adult in Christian initiation or together with the parents presents an infant for baptism. A sponsor also helps the baptized person to lead a Christian life in keeping with baptism and to fulfill faithfully the obligations inherent in it. . . . There is to be only one male sponsor or one female sponsor or one of each (Can. 872, 873).

Further, the sponsor must “be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist and who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on” (Can. 874 §1).

So what is the Vatican up to? If the requirements for baptism and serving as a godparent have not changed, then what has?

The messaging around it.

In its effort to welcome all into the church (good), the administration of Pope Francis has had a knack for distributing confusion through vague dispatches (bad).

To the question: Are transgender people welcome in the Church? The answer is simple: Yes, all are welcome in the Church. To the harder question: Is this person, at this time, fit to receive a particular sacrament? The answer is: It’s complicated.

One can easily imagine a case in which a transgender person should face no obstacles to Christian initiation: Imagine a woman who grew up suffering from gender dysphoria and underwent transgender surgery or hormonal treatment in her teen years but now has expressed sorrow for her past and wishes to enter the church. In a sense, that person would still be considered transgender, as she would still possess the physical ramifications of her transition, but certainly her heart and will would align with what the church asks for in an adult seeking baptism.

So then, what about another case, where a transgender person has no desire to conform to church teaching on human sexuality but still seeks to enter the church?

Certainly, there is a gradient between a person’s total submission to vs. total rejection of church teaching. And this is where, necessarily, pastoral prudence comes in.

The Vatican document has this to say:

At the same time, the following should be considered, especially when there are doubts about the objective moral situation a person is in, or about his or her subjective dispositions toward grace. In the case of Baptism, the Church teaches that when the sacrament is received without repentance for grave sins, the subject does not receive sanctifying grace, although he or she does receive sacramental character. [Italics added]

Just as no person can see into the heart of another, a pastor can only hope and trust that a candidate seeking baptism truly does repent of their sin and earnestly intends the words of confession when spoken. This, of course, holds true regarding all sin that every catechumen carries with them, not just those that are most outwardly visible. “Doubts about the objective moral situation a person is in” do not disqualify a candidate from receiving baptism, but their own state of repentance or lack thereof will determine the efficacy of the sacrament.

However, the document also notes that if a person flagrantly lives in discord with church teaching, and yet receives initiation into the church by baptism, this could be cause for scandal — a public event that misleads the congregation on what the church teaches. The same holds true for serving as a godparent. One need not be sinless to serve as a godparent — such a requirement would eliminate all potential candidates — but one cannot live in discord with church teaching openly and unrepentantly and still serve in the role.

It ought to be stated that open disobedience of church teaching is certainly not confined to issues of gender and sexuality; one could be delayed in initiation or barred from serving as a godparent for a variety of scandalous sins. Let’s say there was a member of the parish community who was recently in the news for committing widespread tax fraud. If that person served as the godparent at a baptism before heading to their criminal trial, this would be a poor example to the congregation.

It must be remembered in all of this, if a person is seeking baptism in the first place, it is a pretty sure sign that they are on the right path. The dicastery letter rightly states that “the predictability of a new fall ‘does not undermine the authenticity of the purpose.’” [Italics in original.]

In all cases, the church should call upon baptized members to live out the promises made in their baptism. Rather than bending to modern norms on gender and sexuality, Vatican messaging should affirm timeless Christian teachings on the dignity of the human body to remedy the confusion and anomie rampant today.