Tag: Christianity

Heinävesi, North Karelia, Finland, December 5, 2024

Photo: wp.com The Holy Transfiguration-New Valaam Monastery is being gifted a wooden chapel named in honor of the summer feast of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

The chapel, which was previously located near a private summer residence, is currently being dismantled for relocation to the monastery. It will be rebuilt along the path that circles the monastery cemetery at the edge of the so-called “Prayer Forest,” reports the Finnish Church.

Archimandrite Michael, the monastery’s abbot, expressed gratitude for the gift, noting that St. Seraphim of Sarov holds special significance for many monastery residents, local inhabitants, and pilgrims.

“Thanks to the chapel, his veneration will take on new forms here, and the importance of his memory will grow. The Prayer Forest, where the chapel will be placed, is considered vaguely reminiscent of St. Seraphim of Sarov’s places of ascetic struggle, making it a fitting location,” the abbot explained.

The chapel was originally consecrated by His Eminence Archbishop John of Karelia and All Finland, on July 19, 1993, and the Divine Liturgy and the Blessing of Waters have been celebrated there annually on that day.

The gift includes icons painted by Jurki Pouta (Christ, the Mother of God, and two icons of St. Seraphim of Sarov), as well as specially crafted altar furnishings, vestments, Eucharistic vessels, an altar Gospel, and a censer.

The chapel is the gift of Deacon Risto Ikäheimo, who has received spiritual consolation at Valaam Monastery for decades.

The chapel will be reconsecrated at its new location on St. Seraphim’s feast day, June 19, when Divine Liturgy will be celebrated there for the first time.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

Tbilisi, December 5, 2024

Photo: sazu.ge     

The Georgian Patriarchate condemns the president’s calls for schools to get involved in the ongoing protests that have at times descended into violent clashes with law enforcement.

Georgian Church calls for peace as protests erupt over EU membership talks suspensionAs always, the Georgian Orthodox Church has called for peace, and for the people to remember their Orthodox heritage.

“>The Church has issued repeated statements calling for peace over the past few days, as thousands have taken to the streets of the capital.

After the ruling Georgian Dream Party won 89 out of 150 Parliamentary seats in October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution declaring the election fraudulent and demanding a new vote. In response, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the government will suspend talks on joining the European Union until 2028.

President Salome Zourabichvili, a critic of Georgian Dream, declared that she won’t leave office when her term ends next month, because the Parliament is “illegitimate.” And on Monday, she issued a call on X for educational institutions to throw their weight behind the pro-EU protestors: “After universities, it is the turn of schools to express their solidarity with the protests, all over Georgia.”

Such a call is unacceptable from someone in such a position, the Georgian Patriarchate states. Rather, the president should be working to neutralize the “polarization and hatred among people.” Political confrontation must not be brought into schools, the statement affirms.

Hundreds of people have been arrested in the week-long protest, and there have been numerous reports of police violence.

Read the Church’s latest statement:

A disturbing and concerning statement by Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili is circulating on the social network X, saying that “after universities, it’s schools’ turn to express solidarity with the protests.”

In recent days, we have been witnessing how events unfold at protest rallies; situations often become so tense that gatherings escalate into the random throwing of objects and physical confrontations.

Under such conditions, any statement encouraging the involvement of school students and minors in general, especially one made by the country’s president, who should be trying to neutralize the existing polarization and hatred among people to protect future generations’ mental and physical health from ongoing events, is extremely concerning.

Additionally, footage is spreading showing how strangers attempt to go against school administrations by entering schools, disrupting the educational process, and addressing students with calls to action, which causes justified outrage, is completely unacceptable, and must stop immediately.

False information is also spreading online claiming that classes have been suspended at the Patriarchate’s St. Ilia the Righteous School, which the institution’s administration itself denies in a Facebook statement: “The educational process at the school continues as usual.”

“I consider it a crime for political actors or parents to involve minors in current processes. We condemn the violence that has been occurring in recent days. We ask students, staff, and parents not to bring political confrontation into the school,” states Mamuka Tediashvili, director of the Patriarchate’s St. Ilia the Righteous School in Tbilisi.

Similarly irresponsible is the unsubstantiated statement discrediting law enforcement and causing polarization, claiming that law enforcement officers are under the influence of narcotics. Clergy representatives of the Patriarchate’s Public Relations Service maintain a nightly watch at the Kashveti Church and the surrounding area and have never recorded such incidents.

Finally, we once again urge the President of Georgia and others to treat each word with more responsibility during these tense days, as it could lead to dire consequences for everyone.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

Bangui, Central African Republic, December 5, 2024

Photo: African Exarchate An Orthodox priest from the Central African Republic has been honored with the highest state award in recognition of his social work.

On November 30, Fr. Sergei Voyémawa of the Church of St. Andrew in the capital city of Bangui and dean of the Central African Republic for the North African Diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate’s African Exarchate, was awarded the rank of Commander of the Order of Merit, the Exarchate reports.

The award, which recognizes special merit in the humanitarian, economic and social spheres, was granted as part of the celebrations of National Day, commemorating the republic’s proclamation of autonomy within the French Community in 1958.

In particular, Fr. Sergei was honored for his work with the St. Sergius of Radonezh Orthodox General Education School and the spiritual care of orphaned children.

On December 18, 2022, the first ordinations for the African Exarchate were celebrated, with Fr. Sergei being ordained to the diaconate at that time.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

There was a time when the film industry produced religious epics featuring A-List directors like DeMille, Wyler and Stevens and starred A-List actors from either side of the Atlantic. They were films noted for their length, with theology that made one wonder if a Sister of Providence with a ruler in her hand was not looking over the script writer’s shoulder.

Those films have gone the same way of the typewriter. Nowadays, films with a religious theme are usually either “small” pictures made outside the studio system, or use faith as an anvil for an anti-religious hammer.

After speaking with DJ Caruso, director of the new film “Mary” out on Netflix this week, I sense there may be a new category of overtly religious/spiritual film to categorize.

Caruso is a “mainstream” director, having guided actors like Al Pacino, Billy Bob Thornton and Shia LaBeouf. He has directed action movies, romances and a thriller or two. He is also a man of faith. When the project “Mary” came his way, he saw it as a beautiful, prophetic opportunity to put his talent where his heart was.

The film is a kind of coming-of-age movie that depicts Mary and Joseph as the people they probably were: young and in love, both with each other and with God.

The turmoil involving a young maiden carrying a child through supernatural means while a homicidal ruler seeks their destruction sounds like action movie material. It is and it isn’t. The story is too big and too profound to be held by Hollywood shorthand.

Most independently financed films rely on “B” and “C” list actors. “Mary” stars Sir Anthony Hopkins as King Herod, who doesn’t portray Herod as a cookie cut-out super villain: Rather, like all evil men throughout history, Herod is complicated, was resented by the Jewish population for the twin failings of not even being Jewish and for being installed as their “king” by their Roman overlords.

Caruso sees him as a man of contradictions: a builder (his commitment to the second temple continued for decades until its completion) and a destroyer, as the biblical accounts report all too well. According to Caruso, his pursuit of the Holy Family takes on many different nuances.

DJ Caruso and his wife were close friends with the late Bishop David O’Connell, who always took great interest in Caruso’s work, particularly when he learned that Caruso was working on a film about Mary and Joseph.

“Make sure to give Joseph a voice — he doesn’t have one in the Gospels,” Caruso says O’Connell told him. “He was courageous and brave, standing against the mob to protect Mary. He was a hero.”

Hence, the film shows the young couple embark on a journey wrought with danger, fear, and doubt, much like what the real Mary and Joseph had to have experienced. The sum of these parts is what goes into creating developed, multi-dimensional characters just as the actual Mary and Joseph most certainly had to be.

Knowing something about the often messy and mostly frustrating process of trying to finance a film independently, it’s clear the very existence of Caruso’s “Mary” is the result of a series of unlikely events. The director was attached to the film before there was money to make the film. The financing needed to create a great looking film with powerful actors doesn’t always arrive for these projects, but in this case, it did.

Then came a challenge that is usually the death knell for independently financed films — regardless of their subject matter. A film needs to be seen and it can only be seen with the cooperation of a large studio with an “art house” division or a streaming service. A seasoned pro like Caruso understood that obstacle well.

“You bet on yourself when you don’t have a studio, or any kind of distribution behind you. I just set out to make the best film that I could. It was an offering to God and I just put my head down and went to work. If I did that, I felt that the rest would take care of itself.”

I’m not sure how many times the Netflix corporation has been part of a miraculous event. But looking for faith-based content their researchers told them young people were seeking, the streaming service “picked” up the film.

Netflix films also do not usually have a connection with a successor to the apostles. This one does. On New Years Day 2023, Caruso and his wife were with their dear family friend, Bishop David O’Connell standing on the roof of a liquor store preparing to watch the Pasadena Rose Parade. Bishop O’Connell wanted an update on Caruso’s Mary movie and was sure that, in Caruso’s capable hands, it could be a film that would inspire and touch the hearts of young people.

“Everyone needs Mary in their lives and hearts, and this film should portray her as the friend we all need to guide us closer to Christ,” Caruso remembers O’Connell telling him.

The film is made by humans, which makes it automatically flawed. But if it accomplishes the task of reaching more young people and putting them in “contact” with the Blessed Mother and her most chaste spouse, then it is easy to visualize Bishop O’Connell with a smile on his face.

Mt. Athos, December 5, 2024

Photo: romfea.gr     

A monk of Mt. Athos has been missing for five days now.

Authorities were alerted about the disappearance of a monk from Xenophontos Monastery on Monday, reports Romfea.

Members of the Hellenic Rescue Team from Thessaloniki, Kavala, and Chalkidiki and a unit from the Fire Service arrived on the Holy Mountain, using a drone and a search dog to assist in the rescue operation.

Body of monk found on Mt. AthosOfficials believe the body of a monk who has been missing since last month has been found on the Holy Mountain.

“>In May 2023, the body of Monk George K. from the Holy Cell of St. Artemios of the Great Lavra, who had been missing for a month, was found less than a mile from the cell.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

Over a decade ago, megachurch celebrity pastor Joel Osteen was determined to make a movie: “Mary, Mother of the Christ.”

Years passed, writers wrote, casts were announced and walked back, publicists publicized, but by 2015, it was clear nothing would happen and eventually the film’s IMDB page went full 404.

Good news: It’s 2024, and Osteen has finally got his movie: “Mary,” being streamed by Netflix beginning on Dec. 6, directed by D.J. Caruso, written by Timothy Michael Hayes, and executive produced by, yes, Joel Osteen.

Starring, controversially to some, Israeli actress Noa Cohen as Mary, Ido Tako as Joseph, and a bearded, staggering, menacing Anthony Hopkins as Herod, the film’s marketing materials tell us:

“…Mary is shunned following a miraculous conception and forced into hiding. When King Herod orders a murderous hunt for her newborn baby, Mary and Joseph go on the run — bound by faith and driven by courage — to save his life at all costs.”

Or, as another of the film’s producers describes it: “a survival thriller.”

Imaginative retellings of Scripture are nothing new from “Dear and Glorious Physician” to “Jesus of Nazareth” to “The Chosen.” Indeed, every painting of a nativity or crucifixion involves the use of the imagination.

The discerning reader or viewer will bring two related questions to these works: What is the intent of the imaginative aspects and what is the relationship of these aspects to the acknowledged source material?

With “Mary,” the team’s stated intentions, both in interviews and through the script itself, are to “tell the story” of Mary. As her voiceover in the opening scene says: “…you may think you know my story … trust me … you don’t.”

Well, apparently not, especially if Mary’s story is a highly selective mashup of the Gospels, the noncanonical “Protoevangelium of James,” that survival thriller, and a Joel Osteen sermon.

So, for example, while many were offended by the novel and by the 1988 Martin Scorsese film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” one cannot judge them on the basis of “inaccuracy,” since fidelity to the Gospel record was not the point. On the other hand, perhaps the most moving moment in “The Passion of the Christ,” a film intent on faithfulness in both letter and spirit, was the fruit of imagination: Mary’s memory of her toddler son’s fall as she watched him stumble under the weight of the cross.

The noncanonical “Protoevangelium of James,” valued in the Early Church and a source for various beliefs about Mary, but declared apocryphal in the 6th century, is used, but selectively. “James” provides the story of Mary’s miraculous origins as the daughter of Joachim and Anna — perhaps the most moving element of the film — and her time in the Temple.

That’s it for “James,” though, as less attractive elements of that text are shifted and dropped, like the part where Temple authorities decide, because of the onset of the defilement of menarche, it’s time to find Mary a husband.

In the text, that’s an older widower named Joseph. In “Mary,” it’s a hunky young builder who is instantly smitten when he spies Mary doing laundry in a river, is encouraged by the Angel in Blue, aka Gabriel, to head to her father’s house — the journey from Jerusalem to Nazareth takes just a hot minute, it seems — to request her hand.

What else? Oh, a few things: The Annunciation takes place in the Temple, not in Nazareth. Joachim is murdered by Herod’s forces. In Bethlehem, Joseph is told by an innkeeper that Bethlehem is crowded because “A child will be born in Bethlehem … the Messiah.”

That child is born. Herod hears the news right away from a shepherd, then immediately orders  the massacre of all of Bethlehem’s infants — even though we then see a scene of a couple of hundred folks gathered around the family, complete with Magi presenting gifts. Not exactly hard to find, you’d think.

All of this is interesting and yes, completely out of whack with the biblical chronology. But it’s this last part of the film that is, as we say today, definitely a choice.

The family heads to Egypt. They stop at a house. Herod’s minions attack. Mary tosses Jesus in a basket down to Joseph then jumps down, robes rippling in the air. She leaps on a horse with the baby. Joseph, defending them, tosses the net and leaves the man burning. Pause, reverse, rewatch: Joseph kills a guy.

Survival thriller, indeed!

The family moves on — not to Egypt, but Jerusalem. OK, but why? Herod is still on the hunt brandishing a sword and seething about the Messiah in a great hall, surrounded by baskets of babies. Mary and Joseph approach Jerusalem’s gates. Super dangerous for sure, but Mary is determined and confident. “We are blessed,” she asserts, and in they march to the Temple, where the prophetess Anna awaits. Love will save the world.

Well, sure it will, but wait, what? Setting aside Avenger Joseph, this is all wrong. The Gospels tell us that the Presentation of Jesus occurred 40 days after his birth, coinciding with Mary’s ritual purification. And yes, Mary and Joseph did make it to Egypt, but that journey, along with Herod’s massacre and even the visit of the Magi, occurred when he was a toddler.

Does it really matter?

Yes it does, especially when, no matter how well intentioned, you are presenting your work as the “story” that the rest of us never knew before.

Not only does all of this — especially the last part — do violence to the sources we have and the creators say they used, it also creates a picture of Mary that is inconsistent, to say the least, with her actual role in the Christian story.

In focusing on Mary’s personal courage and tenacity, as well as centering the story on the arc of Herod’s terror and rage, the film removes Mary from the deeper, more foundational story of God’s people and indeed, salvation history. We know a lot about Herod’s megalomania but hear little about Israel’s suffering. Love will save the world, but from what? The brokenness of sin that has shattered all of creation or mean people? 

No, Mary does not exactly girlboss her way through this survival thriller because she does, indeed, rely on God. But the nature of her reliance is succinctly expressed in her response to Gabriel’s news.

“Let it be me.”

What a difference one word makes. Not a fiat, a let it be rooted in her historic faith’s actual spirituality and practice, but a me centered on a vague trust in a vague self-empowering promise, a spiritually selective, self-referential framework that just might, circling back to the beginning of this piece and this project, sound familiar.

The Holy See has suppressed the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, a month after its residents were dismissed from the Carmelite order and religious life.

The decree, issued Nov. 28 by the Vatican Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, stated that the monastery “is extinct.”

The decree described having previously dismissed on Oct. 28 “five solemnly professed nuns for reasons of their notorious defection from the Catholic faith” as well as the “Carmel’s only novice,” whose temporary vows had expired in August, “leaving the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity with no members.” The decree was signed by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, the dicastery’s prefect, and Sister Simona Brambilla, the dicastery’s secretary.

In an accompanying letter to Bishop Michael F. Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, dated Nov. 29, Sister Simona, a Consolata Missionary who has served as the dicastery’s secretary since 2023, said the dicastery “acknowledges that the events of the past year and a half have caused you and the faithful of the Diocese of Fort Worth hardship and unwarranted public attention.”

“Be assured that we are grateful for your heroic and thankless service to the local Church,” she said.

In a Dec. 2 letter to the diocese, issued on the diocesan website with the decree and Sister Simona’s letter attached, Bishop Olson described the situation as the culmination of a “sad series of events.”

He emphasized that the women living in the former monastery are no longer nuns, despite their previous claims to the contrary. He also said that the diocese is not making, and has not made, claims to the former monastery property, which sits on 72 wooded acres within the boundaries of the Fort Worth Diocese.

“I wish to again acknowledge the great sadness that this entire affair has brought to our local church and beyond, and to me personally,” Bishop Olson wrote in the letter. “The actions of the former nuns have perpetrated a deep wound in the Body of Christ. I ask all of you to join me in praying for healing, reconciliation, and for the conversion of these women who have departed from the vowed religious life and notoriously defected from communion with the Catholic Church by their actions.”

Over the past year and a half, the now former nuns have openly fought with Bishop Olson following his allegations in April 2023 that their prioress had committed unspecified sins against chastity, revealed later to have allegedly taken place via phone with a priest from another diocese. The nuns filed a lawsuit against the bishop, launching a feud that has involved both civil and church courts, as well as law enforcement, and included allegations that the bishop wanted access to the nuns’ donor list or property, and that the nuns were engaged in illegal cannabis use. The bishop also placed various restrictions on the nuns’ access to the sacraments, and the monastery’s access to the public.

The former nuns also refused to recognize the authority of a Carmelite from another monastery whom a Vatican office appointed in April as the community’s major superior.

In September, the nuns affiliated themselves with the Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist fraternity of priests without official canonical recognition by the Catholic Church that follows older forms of the Roman rite used prior to the Second Vatican Council, but has objections regarding the council’s teaching and the scope of its authority. While it is not in schism, the SSPX exists in an irregular state of communion with respect to the pope.

The nuns also illicitly transferred ownership of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity to a nonprofit organization of laypeople, according to an Oct. 28 statement issued by the diocese.

As of April 2023, around 50 people went to the monastery for daily Mass, with at least 10 more joining the nuns for Sunday Mass. At that time, the nuns described their community — which was founded in 1958 — as including their prioress, seven sisters and two novices, women in formation to take vows. As cloistered, contemplative nuns, they lived apart from the world to dedicate their lives to prayer.

In September, Bishop Olson urged Catholics not to seek sacraments at the since-suppressed monastery “for the good of your souls … as such participation will associate you with the scandalous disobedience and disunity of the members of the Arlington Carmel.”

In his Dec. 2 letter, the bishop wrote “that any Masses and sacraments celebrated at the former Monastery are illicit and done so by priests without faculties or permission to minister in the Diocese of Fort Worth. It is gravely wrong for Catholics knowingly to assist at these Masses. Catholics do harm to the Communion of the Catholic Church by intentionally attending these ceremonies.”

Homilies must be prepared with the help of the Holy Spirit, be shorter than 10 minutes and put the spotlight on the Lord, not oneself, Pope Francis said.

Those who preach must convey “one idea, one sentiment and an invitation to action,” he said.

Preaching loses its power and starts to ramble after eight minutes, he said to the applause of visitors gathered for his general audience in St. Peter’s Square Dec. 4.

The pope continued his series of audience talks on the Holy Spirit, focusing on its role in evangelization and preaching in the church.

It was also the first general audience to include a greeting and a summary of the pope’s catechesis in Mandarin Chinese. The pope gives his catechesis in Italian, and aides read summaries in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic and, from Dec. 4, standard Chinese.

In his main audience talk, the pope said, “The church must do precisely what Jesus says at the beginning of his public ministry,” which, according to St. Luke’s Gospel, is to accept the anointing of the Holy Spirit “to bring glad tidings to the poor.”

“Preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit means transmitting, together with the ideas and the doctrine, the life and profound conviction of our faith. It means doing so ‘not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power,’” he said, citing the First Letter to the Corinthians.

The Holy Spirit comes to those who pray, which is the first thing a preacher must do, he said.

“Woe to those who preach without praying,” he said, because they become, as St. Paul described, “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.”

“The second thing is not wanting to preach ourselves, but to preach Jesus, the Lord,” Pope Francis said.

Often homilies are so long, 20 or 30 minutes, that people will go outside to smoke a cigarette and come back, he said.

“Please,” he said, “do not go longer than 10 minutes, ever! This is very important.”

“Not wanting to preach oneself also implies not always giving priority to pastoral initiatives promoted by us and linked to our own name, but willingly collaborating, if requested, in community initiatives or (those) entrusted to us by obedience,” he said.

The pope asked that the Holy Spirit, “help us, accompany us and teach us” how to preach the Gospel to men and women today.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Dec. 4 in a case concerning a challenge to a Tennessee state law banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender.

It’s the high court’s first major step toward weighing in on the controversial issue.

The question at issue in the case — United States v. Skrmetti, the Biden administration’s challenge to a law in Tennessee restricting gender transition treatments including puberty blockers for minors — is whether Tennessee’s law, Senate Bill 1, violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Arguments took place over about two and a half hours and were at times tense. Supporters and critics of the law protested outside the court.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who argued on behalf of the federal government, sparred with Justice Samuel Alito, who asked her whether she stands by her arguments that “these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks.”

“I, of course, acknowledge, Justice Alito that there is a lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents should receive it, and how to identify the adolescents for whom it would be helpful,” she said. “But I stand by that there is a consensus that these treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents, and that’s true no matter what source you look at.”

How European countries have approached the issue was a frequent topic of argument. Earlier this year, England’s National Health Service, or NHS, announced it would no longer automatically prescribe puberty-suppressing hormones to child patients at its gender identity clinics. Other countries including Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden have also moved to limit such treatments or otherwise prevent overdiagnosis of gender dysphoria.

England’s move followed an interim report by Dr. Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, whom the NHS appointed in 2020 to conduct an independent review of its gender identity services. The Cass report found “gaps in the evidence base” for puberty blockers, which arrest the onset of puberty by inhibiting sex hormones. Critics of that report argue it was politicized.

Alito said the government’s argument “relegated the Cass report to a footnote,” but Prelogar said that the report did not call for the outright ban of such treatments, and the United Kingdom did not enact such a ban.

Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice, who argued on behalf of that state, said the equal protection clause “does not require the states to blind themselves to medical reality, or to treat unlike things the same.”

Rice sparred with Justice Sonia Sotomayor over the risks of such treatments. Rice argued the question of whether or not to administer medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures is a “pure exercise of weighing benefits versus risk, and the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits.” Sotomayor cut in that “every medical treatment has a risk.”

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio also argued on behalf of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including transgender adolescents and their parents. Strangio is the first openly transgender lawyer to argue at the court.

In a notable exchange between Alito and Strangio, the justice pressed the lawyer on whether being transgender is an “immutable” condition, an important legal term meaning whether an aspect of a person’s identity is fundamental and unchangeable, and therefore protected under the equal protection clause.

Strangio argued, “The record shows that the discordance between a person’s birth, sex and gender identity has a strong biological basis and would satisfy an immutability test.” But later, Alito again pressed on whether being transgender would qualify as an immutable trait, citing those who begin and then either halt or reverse treatment for gender transitions.

“Are there not such people?” Alito asked.

“There are such people,” Strangio replied.

“So it’s not an immutable characteristic. Is it?” Alito said.

“Well, I think people’s understanding of it shifts, but the evidence shows that there is at least a strong underlying basis,” Strangio said.

Having two separate parties — the federal government and the ACLU — argue in the case means the challenge to Tennessee’s law would continue through the ACLU in the event the incoming Trump administration ended the Biden administration’s challenge after he takes office in January.

In another notable moment, Prelogar spoke more favorably of a West Virginia law regulating such treatments for minors. West Virginia first considered a law like Tennessee’s, she argued, but reversed course in favor of a law that established “a set of guardrails that are far more precisely tailored” than Tennessee’s law. West Virginia’s law restricting such treatments includes an exception for minors who are considered by doctors to be at risk for self-harm or suicide.

At least 25 Republican-led states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender reassignment surgery or related hormonal treatments for minors, although not all of those bans are currently in effect amid legal challenges, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ policy group. A ruling in United States v. Skrmetti could potentially have a significant impact on the future of those laws.

Supporters of prohibitions on gender transition surgeries or hormonal treatments for minors who identify as transgender say such restrictions will prevent them from making irreversible decisions as children that they may later come to regret as adults. Critics of such bans argue that preventing those interventions could cause other harm to minors, such as mental health issues or physical self-harm.

In guidance on health care policy and practices released in March 2023, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine outlined the church’s opposition to interventions that “involve the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient’s body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof.”

“Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person,” the document states.

A 2022 study by the UCLA Williams Institute found that there are approximately 1.6 million people in the U.S. who identify as transgender, with nearly half of that population between the ages of 13 and 24.

Christmas this season in the Holy Land will be celebratory, despite ongoing bloodshed and war, the patriarchs of the Holy Land said, as Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa encouraged pilgrims to come back to the birthplace of Jesus.

During his visit to Germany, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem said he is counting on a rapid normalization of pilgrimage tourism following the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

“Pilgrimage is now absolutely safe and also important for society,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said in Cologne Dec. 3, reported KNA, a Catholic news agency in Germany. The cardinal hoped that the relative calming of the war situation in Israel will lead to more pilgrims arriving again over the Christmas season.

Pilgrimages and religious tourism are an important economic factor for many Christians in the region, with many not able to make any income for their families as tourists disappeared and stores across pilgrimage sites remain closed for the 14th month since Oct. 7, 2023. That is when Hamas attacked Israel killing 1,200 people, which ignited the Israel-Hamas war focusing on the Gaza Strip, destroying vast parts of the enclave and killing over 45,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

As Advent approached, the patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem issued a statement, however, that war this year won’t stop the joyful celebration of Christmas in the land of Jesus.

“Last year, as a means of standing in solidarity with the multitudes suffering from the newly erupted war,” the patriarchs made “a mutual decision to call upon our congregations to forego the public display of Christmas lights and decorations, along with their associated festivities.”

But, the patriarchs admitted, their intentions were misunderstood.

“While our intentions in doing so were good, many around the world nevertheless misinterpreted this call to signify a ‘Cancellation of Christmas’ in the Holy Land — the very place of our Lord’s Holy Nativity” and because of this “our unique witness to the Christmas message of light emerging out of darkness … was diminished not only around the world, but also among our own people,” they wrote Nov. 22.

Therefore this year, the patriarchs said, they “encourage our congregations and people to fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ’s birth by giving public signs of Christian hope.”

At the same time, the patriarchs asked all of the faithful to keep the suffering people of the Holy Land in their prayers, “reaching out to them with deeds of kindness and charity, and welcoming them as Christ himself has welcomed each of us.”

This way, they said, “we will echo the Christmas story itself, where the angels announced to the shepherds glad tidings of Christ’s birth in the midst of similarly dark times in our region … offering to them and to the entire world a message of divine hope and peace.”

Meanwhile, for those who cannot celebrate Christmas in the land of Jesus, the Franciscan-led Custody of the Holy Land launched a special campaign for Advent, encouraging the use of social media to experience where Jesus spent his first hours — in preparation for the Jubilee Year, in which “hope” is the main theme.

“The Holy Land is still marked by the harsh reality of war, with its consequences: the absence of pilgrims, the economic crisis and the lack of confidence in the future,” the custody wrote in the Nov. 28 announcement, inviting “the faithful all over the world to be ‘pilgrims of hope’ and visit Bethlehem, even only virtually.”

Through social media reels “and a special virtual tour of the Grotto of the Nativity, it will be possible to be immersed in the environment, which was the first to welcome Jesus, in swaddling clothes, at the start of His terrestrial life,” the custody said.

The reels will be posted on the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages of the Custody of the Holy Land.

The virtual tour opened Dec. 1 on the social media pages of the custody and from its website.