Curious Reads: The Trans Catholic Monk
Curious Reads: The Trans Catholic Monk
The First Transgender Catholic Hermit Tells His Story and Advocates Inclusion
Hello friend, Liz here.
#1 Today’s top of the fold story is a testimony—that is, a transgender Catholic hermit recently asked the Vatican to reconsider its relationship to gender by telling his story of religious vocation.
Brother Christian Matson is thought to be the first openly transgender person in his position in the Catholic Church, and I found his story deeply moving.
Read “Catholic diocesan hermit approved by Kentucky bishop comes out as transgender“ by Jack Jenkins at Religion News Service
The Highlights
Raised in the PCA (Presbyterian Church of America), Christian Matson transitioned during college, “a step he refers to as a part of his ‘medical history’ rather than a ‘central part of my personal identity.’”
He converted to Catholicism four years after his transition and felt a desire to join the ministry of the Catholic Church—even though he understood that he’d run into obstacles fulfilling his calling due to a 2000 Vatican document that said that those who’d undergone “sex change,” in the words of the pronouncement, would be “ineligible ‘to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life.”
Over ten years, he continued his religious education, eventually completing an PhD in theology as he sought a way to serve the church.
“People who knew me said, ‘You clearly have a religious vocation,’ and these were all people who knew my medical history,” Matson said. “But when they would go to the people in the community in charge of making that decision, they … would often just refuse to even meet with me.” Despite the fact that Mason had taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and his clear desire to pursue the life of a hermit, communities would not accept him.
Finally, after years of Matson seeking and “crushing” rejection, he encountered Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky who expressed openness to accepting the novitiate as a hermit.
“It was an enormous relief,” Matson said. “I was in tears. I felt my hope revive.”
He moved to Kentucky, enrolled as a novitiate in a Benedictine community, and August 2022, Matson took his first vows to spend the year as a diocesan hermit.
Over that year, Matson “lived a life of basically spending half the day in prayer and half the day doing some form of work,” often supporting a local theater.
Yet Matson remains concerned about the debate and misinformation the Vatican has released about transgender individuals within the Catholic church, especially because many who would join the church are turned away. Meanwhile, a contingent of support and tolerance toward the entire LGBTQ+ community is growing within the Catholic church. Matson has now added his voice to the chorus.
“I can’t stand by and let this false and, at times, culpably ignorant understanding of what it means to be transgender continue to hurt people,” he said. “If I don’t say anything and allow the church to continue to make decisions based on incorrect information, then I’m not serving the church.”
BTW, did you know that Andy Warhol was Catholic? And, no surprise, he had a complex relationship with the Catholic church.
Reflection
I’m amazed and humbled by the tenacity of Brother Matson as he’s pursued a place in the Catholic Church. Whatever beliefs you hold about gender, sexuality, and transgender politics in particular, a fundamental Christian doctrine is the fact that every single human is made in the image of God and, therefore, is loved by God as a child. This true whether they share our politics, ethnicity, economic status, geography, and/or our sexual and gender identities. (Yes, even the Trump voter is made in the image of God. Even Trump himself.)
Christians tend to overlook this doctrine when it’s convenient for us. But the fact is stark: Christ calls even those we hate our neighbors, just as he calls his enemies his friends. (See: the story of the prodigal sons, the one lost sheep, or the good Samaritan.)
…No one said this faith journey was easy, my friends. ;-)
And, generally speaking, what church people have offered to LGBTQ folks is the very opposite treatment that Jesus models. Of course, we’re familiar with the most hateful and homophobic displays of Christians rejecting those with minority identities, but what about purposeful ignorance? Not only have we refused love and care, but too often, we have stuck our heads in the sand, refusing even to see these souls among us.
I was particularly moved by this quote from Matson:
“You’ve got to deal with us, because God has called us into this church,” he said. “It’s not your church to kick us out of — this is God’s church, and God has called us and engrafted us into it.”
This brother is a man who understands the story of God more deeply than most of us ever will—because he’s understood the radical, undiscerning welcome of God. He is the rejected outsider, the one who loves much because he has been loved much by God. After all, what is the point of church? None of us earns a place in these pews by being good or right or normative. We are only here because of God’s great love for us.
Matson also describes an encounter he had at the local theater, as journalist Jack Jenkins describes:
Attending a friend’s play in his religious habit, [Matson] was approached by a student who identified as trans and nonbinary. After asking if Matson was a monk, the student said they were raised Catholic, but that their parents had rejected their identity, and the student felt like they “don’t have a place in the church anymore.”
Matson responded by saying there were people in the church who would support the student, and Matson prayed with them, asking God to show the student how they are “wonderful the way you’ve made them.” The student, Matson said, grew emotional, thanking the hermit profusely and saying, “No one from the church has ever affirmed me for who I am.”
Note that the rejection felt by this student is not felt in connection to their actions or beliefs, but to their personhood. Transgender folks inside the church often feel denigrated, demeaned, and dehumanized. However, when we reject them in ways that harm their sense of self, we are also harming Christ himself, their Maker.
I feel deeply grateful that this Kentucky bishop extended welcome to Matson amongst a very divided Catholic church. I also fear how the wider church will receive to Matson’s advocacy in this article. And, at the same time, I admire Matson’s courage in telling his story and his trust that telling the truth will serve the wider big C Church more than his silence. I believed it already has.
Thanks for reading. Warmly, Liz Charlotte Grant
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Just for Fun
It’s official. Tacos = mexican sandwiches.
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…But for real, are tacos sandwiches? Weigh in.