The paragraph made me chuckle a bit:

The Archdiocese of St. Louis is deeply saddened and disturbed by the Boy Scouts of America’s announcement that the organization will allow transgender youth into its programs.

As someone who was born into being excommunicated from the Catholic Church (being in a Lutheran family), the concept of the entire Church being deeply disturbed had occurred to me many, many years ago...probably before I properly understood what the word "concept" really meant.

The archdiocese put out a statement Tuesday saying that such action is contrary to the organization’s dedication to honor, service and “duty to God” by allowing “girls struggling with gender dysphoria into their troops.”

It is dismaying to the Archbishop, I'm sure, but many of us transfolk actually make it past the "struggle" phase.

For more than a century, Boy Scouts has been an organization dedicated to honor, service, and “duty to God.” However, it is impossible to speak of a scout’s “duty to God” while at the same time failing to recognize the fundamental order of God’s creation.

The fact is that human beings are born with a sexual identity and not merely a “gender identity” of one’s choosing. This sexual identity affects the totality of the person in the unity of his or her body and soul, and it greatly affects one’s capacity to love and be loved.

Pope Francis reminds of these fundamental truths in his recent encyclical, Laudato Si’:

The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different.
--Laudato Si’ 155

For many years the Boy Scouts of America has been an organization that could be trusted with the formation for our youth. This policy directive is the latest in a troubling pattern of behavior exhibited by the Boy Scouts of America. It is clear that as they move in the ways of the world they are becoming increasingly incompatible with our Catholic values.

--Archbishop Robert James Carlson, St. Louis

Catholic dudes:

There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are
She said, 'cause
He made you perfect, babe
So hold your head up,
girl and you'll go far
Listen to me when I say

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Somehow that seemed appropriate on this day.

Last April Carlson issued a letter calling on parishes to condemn the Girl Scouts for open up to transgender girls.