(OSV News) – The announcement from the nation’s second Catholic president on a transgender-themed event is causing concern among some believers, since the date this year coincides with Easter – and the banning of the White House Easter egg drawing contest, among others. , religious symbol.
On March 29, President Joe Biden issued his annual message for March 31 “International Transgender Day of Visibility,” which he said “honors the courage and contributions of transgender Americans and reaffirms the commitment of our Nation to create a better Union.
The treatment was done in 2009 by psychotherapist Rachel Crandall-Crocker, executive director of the Transgender Michigan advocacy group and its Transgender Michigan Helpline.
Crandall-Crocker told NPR her goal is to create a separate celebration day from Nov. 20 “Transgender Day of Remembrance.” That event was founded in 1999 to “show the need for awareness about anti-transgender violence,” founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith explained in a 2012 Huffington Post article.
At the same time, the White House warned young people participating in its Easter egg design contest to reject designs with “religious symbols” and “overlying religious themes,” as well as “political messages.” partisan”; hateful or discriminatory content, and “any questionable content.”
Easter, or Pascha, is the main religious festival in all Christian churches, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead three days after his crucifixion in the Friday. The tradition of dyed “Easter eggs” from the early Christians of Persia is believed to be a symbol of Christ’s resurrection, with the practice spreading to other Eastern churches and in the West.
Easter is a festival whose date is supposed to be close to the Jewish festival of Passover – when the Gospels mention Jesus’ crucifixion, death and resurrection – while it was being done on Sunday. It changes every year due to the complex number of punar spring months and the solar calendar. In the Catholic Church and other Protestant churches, Easter is celebrated in 2024 on March 31; Most Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on May 5 due to calendar differences.
Biden’s announcement, the same days of Easter and transgender observation, and the White House competition rules combined to spark outrage on the Internet.
Among those weighing in is Lila Rose, the Catholic life supporter, who wrote on X, previously called Twitter, March 30, that the White House “proudly celebrates the religion of the trans cult, but Prohibits “Christian symbols or themes” on the biggest Christian holiday – Easter.
“Our ‘Catholic’ President uses faith when it’s convenient to sell, and then ridicule and disparage,” he wrote.
However, regarding the White House’s egg competition rules, Politico reports that those rules have been in place for every administration since 1976 — including under Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.
The Trump campaign tried to blame Biden for holding the Easter egg, but was fired back saying it was owed “to millions of Catholics and Christians.” The Biden campaign backfired that “Catholics *are* Christians. You don’t say ‘Catholics and Christians.’ ” Politico pointed out that the unfair distinction is a myth as some US Protestant churches argue that Catholics are not really Christians.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Man or woman is truly good and desired by God; Man and woman have the same dignity ‘in the image of God.’ In their ‘man’ and ‘woman’, they show the wisdom and goodness of the Creator.
In March 2023, the advisory committee of the US Bishops issued a 14-page statement stating that surgery, chemicals or other procedures that aim to “change” women’s “characters” ” of man for others.
“The person, body and soul, male and female, has a fundamental and final order whose integrity must be respected,” said the committee, led by Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas. “As a result of this order and result, patients and doctors and researchers and others do not have unlimited rights over the body; They must respect the order and destiny that is written in the person involved.
The advisory committee agreed that “many people are really looking for ways to respond to real problems and real pain.”
However, the advisory committee stated that “any technical act that is contrary to the basic order of the human being as a union of body and soul, with the exception of sexual intercourse which is written in in the body, it does not help, but hurts the body. human being.”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @GinaJesseReina.
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