The Importance of an Authentic Christian Anthropology

(Monday Plenary Session)

The Church’s teaching about sexuality in general, and homosexuality and gender in particular, is rooted in its understanding of the human person.  This talk will consider the fundamental teachings of the Church regarding personal identity, the ordering of desires, and the morality of actions, and provide terminology and perspective for communicating these teachings in a clear and compassionate manner.

An Authentically Welcoming Parish: Preaching, the Sacraments and Parish Life

(Tuesday Pastoral Care Track)

Ministry to the parish community is often characterized by what Pope Francis has called “the art of accompaniment,” and clergy and others in pastoral ministry must be prepared to welcome and accompany parishioners who are living with the experience of same sex attraction or confusion about sexual identity in their own lives or in the life of a loved one. Father Bochanski will discuss what the Church expects an authentic welcome to look like in parishes and schools. In particular, he will consider the guidelines that the Church provides for participation in parish life and ministry, and for the celebration of the sacraments. He will also consider the importance of adult faith formation and the Sunday homily among efforts to “speak the truth in love.”

Authentic Pastoral Care in Light of Confusion About Sexual Identity

(Tuesday Sexual Identity Track)

Our pastoral priority toward people who are experiencing confusion regarding their sexual identity, and towards their parents and loved ones, must be to welcome them in the name of Christ and to help them to understand and accept God’s plan for their lives. This talk will consider how “speaking the truth in love” to someone about his or her identity, vocation and relationships can lead him or her to a greater self-understanding and fulfillment in Christ. It will also consider the impact that the experience of confusion about sexual identity can have on the life of the parish, and how clergy and others in ministry should respond.

Guarding Our Capacity for Authentic Love: The Importance of Affectivity in Daily Life

(Tuesday Pastoral Care Track and Mental Health Track)

Affectivity is our capacity to be affected or moved by the human emotions of love, desire and joy – emotions necessary for our ability to be moved by the goodness of things and persons. It is complemented by effectivity, or our ability to think and act effectively, to produce or achieve something. While both effectivity and affectivity – or mind and heart – are necessary for a balanced human life, so often we find ourselves striving to make things better, produce change, or fix problems – and wound already wounded people in the process. While such goals may be commendable, the ability to love authentically develops more readily when one recognizes that it is the heart, or affectivity, that brings peace and resolves difficulties. When we learn to approach others with open hearts, our actions are more likely to be experienced as respectful and loving, and therefore bring healing.

Engendering Discussion:  Recent Catholic Thought on Sexual Difference

(Tuesday Sexual Identity Track)

Recent Church teaching has warned of the dangers of “gender ideology” and its destructive impact on persons and families.  But what positive resources does the Christian tradition have to offer a culture which now lists over 70 genders on Facebook?  Surveying recent Catholic theology and Church teaching (particularly the Theology of the Body of St. John Paul II), the presentation will argue that sexual difference is best understood as two complementary personal expressions of the one nature of humanity.  That is, sexual difference is accidental to human nature but essential to existing human persons.

Transgender Surgery & Catholic Anthropology

(Tuesday Sexual Identity Track)

The subject of Gender Identity will be examined, including a review of the history, terminology, scientific evidence, and the medical and surgical interventions that are proposed for the care of self-identified transgender persons. We will call upon the Catholic understanding of the nature of the human person to illuminate the crucial moral questions that must be addressed in pastoral care.