Catholic News Agency reports that a federal appeals court struck down Michigan’s ban on counseling minors distressed by gender confusion, ruling the law violated therapists’ free speech rights. The December 17 decision permits counselors to help children embrace their biological sex, rejecting the state’s classification of such care as forbidden “conversion therapy.” The Becket Fund celebrated this as enabling “evidence-based counseling” to avoid medicalized gender transitions. While framed as a victory for religious freedom, this legal skirmish masks the deeper collapse of moral authority in a Church that should be condemning gender ideology itself as diabolical.
Natural Law Erased by Therapeutic Relativism
The court’s reduction of human ontology to “viewpoint discrimination” exposes the bankruptcy of Enlightenment anthropology. When judges declare that affirming biological reality constitutes merely one permissible “viewpoint” among others, they enact the Syllabus of Errors’ condemnation of those who place “human reason… as the sole arbiter of truth” (Pius IX, Syllabus, Propositions 1-4). Michigan’s law – and its overturn – both operate within the same relativistic framework that treats sex as subjective identity rather than ensoulment (the substantial union of body and soul).
Therapeutic approaches praised by Becket as “compassionate, evidence-based counseling” still accept the modernist premise that gender distress requires clinical intervention rather than spiritual correction. This concedes the battlefield to Freudian psychology while abandoning St. Paul’s imperative: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). True Catholic healing would address the demonic roots of body hatred through sacramental grace, not behavioral therapy.
Conciliar Silence Enables Legal Charlatanism
The article’s celebration of this ruling as progress reveals the conciliar sect’s complicity in naturalism. Where are the “bishops” thundering Pius XI’s teaching that Christ must reign “over individuals, families, and states” (Quas Primas, §19)? Instead, USCCB bureaucrats issue tepid statements about “preserving the integrity of the human body” while allowing Catholic hospitals to perform mastectomies on healthy girls. This moral cowardice flows directly from Vatican II’s embrace of religious liberty – a heresy condemned as “insanity” by Pius IX (Quanta Cura, §3).
Michigan’s original ban weaponized psychiatric language to criminalize Catholic anthropology, defining reality-affirming therapy as equivalent to homosexual “conversion” quackery. That such laws exist proves the success of the “abomination of desolation” (Mt 24:15) – the occupation of Church structures by modernists who’ve surrendered medicine, education, and law to Satan.
Becket’s Pyrrhic Victory Masks Deeper Apostasy
Becket’s triumph is illusory, for it defends a shrunken realm of “viewpoint” tolerance while accepting the state’s authority to regulate pastoral care. The court conceded government may license therapists and control “professional conduct,” reserving power to ban “harmful” speech later. This mirrors the conciliar sect’s own bureaucratic tyranny, where “dialogue” replaces dogma and canon law becomes optional.
The plaintiffs’ inclusion of “Catholic Charities” underscores the neo-church’s corruption. This organization long ago abandoned orthodoxy, partnering with federal agencies to implement contraception mandates and LGBTQ adoption. Their legal posture – begging secular courts for crumbs of religious exemption – epitomizes the clericalism condemned by Pius X: “They want the Church to be free, but only that they themselves may dominate her” (Vehementer Nos, §8).
Gender Ideology as Rebellion Against Divine Law
At its core, transgenderism constitutes metaphysical rebellion against the Creator’s ordinance: “Male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). The Michigan case concerns minors because Satan targets children first, as always – from Herod’s slaughter of innocents to today’s Drag Queen Story Hours. Every “gender-affirming” intervention – puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, amputations – constitutes sacrilege against the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).
True shepherds would excommunicate politicians enacting these laws and therapists performing transitions. Instead, “Pope” Leo XIV’s Vatican promotes Father James Martin’s blasphemous “trans blessings.” This apostasy fulfills Paul VI’s lament: “The smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary” (June 29, 1972 sermon). Only by restoring Christ’s social kingship – through public consecration of states to His Sacred Heart and Mary’s Immaculate Heart – can this diabolical disorientation end.
Source:
Federal court allows Michigan therapists to counsel children claiming to be opposite sex (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 18.12.2025