No, the human body is not incidental to who we are as men and women.

It isn’t really accurate to talk about body “parts” in the way that we might talk about “parts” of a car or a Lego set. If a wheel is removed from a car, it remains a wheel. By contrast, if a foot is removed from a human, it ceases to be a foot and soon decomposes. A foot exists in order to walk, but it can’t walk unless it works in concert with an ankle, a leg, blood vessels, a nervous system, and so on. A foot’s very activity of walking depends on belonging to a whole, therefore the whole determines its being.

It’s the existence of the whole that actually determines sex. Specifically, it’s the relationship of a whole person to the act of bringing another whole person into existence.

Generating new human life is done by the whole person, not merely a part. It’s more accurate to speak about sex, not so much as a removable part of a person, but as an aspect.

Two Opportunities for Christ the King

This year's Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (November 24) brings two particular observances.

The first is its conneciton with religious liberty. In its core document, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty, the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty "urge[d] that the Solemnity of Christ the King–a feast born out of resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty–be a day specifically employed by bishops and priests to preach about religious liberty, both here and abroad." To that end, we invite you to join the USCCB in praying a novena for religious freedom starting November 16. You can also find more resources here.

The second is the Church's Annual Global Celebration of Youth and Young Adults. In 2020, Pope Francis called for a renewal of the global celebration of young people in the local churches in every diocese and eparchy. He also announced that, beginning in 2021, he would "transfer the diocesan celebration of WYD from Palm Sunday to Christ the King Sunday. The center of the celebration remains the Mystery of Jesus Christ the Redeemer of Man, as Saint John Paul II, the initiator and patron of WYD, always emphasized." You can find resources and more information on how to bring this celebration to your area here.

Legal/Policy Updates

USCCB Amicus Brief in the Skrmetti Case – The USCCB and the Tennessee State Conference filed an amicus brief in a case brought before the Supreme Court to determine whether a Tennessee state law prohibiting “gender-affirming care” for minors violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Federal Comments – The USCCB submitted comments urging the Deparment of Health and Human Services (HHS) not to adopt provisions in its proposed rule that impedes access to information related to “reproductive health care,” which would have the effect of deterring civil and criminal investigations into violations of state and federal law relating to abortion and other procedures, such as “gender transition procedures.” Additionally, the USCCB urged HHS to refrain from the standardization of “pronouns” and the collection of data based on arbitrary classifications relating to “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) in electronic health information, referred to as ICD-10 codes for the purpose of diagnostic recording.