The Transgender Question: Theological and Legal Considerations [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

On Monday, March 9, 2020 the Saint Benedict Institute hosted theologian, Theresa Farnan, and lawyer, John Bursch, to speak on "The Transgender Question: Theological and Legal Considerations." The event was an effort to shed light, rather than heat, on one of the most controversial issues of our time.

In the past two years, the transgender movement has accelerated at a dramatic speed. What once seemed like a marginal movement has claimed the mantle of civil rights and moved to the center of local and national debates.  At stake in these debates are deep and perplexing questions: What does it mean to be human? Are male and female true human categories or cultural constructs? What is sex and gender? Are these fixed or fluid? Is our biology something we can change? What are the legal consequences for granting or not granting rights based on gender identity?  Many people are understandably confused about what to think or do in light of these complicated questions.

In this event, theologian Theresa Farnan offered a Catholic theological and pastoral perspective on the transgender question.  Lawyer John Bursch shared thoughts on what legal ramifications we have already seen and can expect to see.  Each speaker offered a brief reflection followed by an extensive Question and Answer period.

John Bursch is Vice President of Appellate Advocacy for Alliance Defending Freedom, America’s largest public-interest law firm defending every individual’s right to freely live and speak out about their faith. He also owns Bursch Law PLLC, a Michigan appellate boutique. Over the past dozen years, John has argued 12 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and 30 in the Michigan Supreme Court. These cases include many of the most important legal issues of our time, including Michigan’s right to define marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges) and whether federal courts should redefine the meaning of “sex” in federal law (Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC). Michigan Super Lawyers has recognized John as one of Michigan’s Top 10 lawyers, and a recent survey concluded that among frequent U.S. Supreme Court advocates who do not work for the federal government, John was the 3rd-most successful lawyer in the nation at winning Justices’ votes for his position. John is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.

Dr. Theresa Farnan is an author and moral philosopher who specializes in virtue ethics, moral education, philosophy of the person, sexual difference and identity, and ethical issues facing the family.  She is a founding member of the Person and Identity Project, which provides theological and pastoral resources about the Church’s teaching on gender ideology to Catholic educators and diocesan personnel.  She has taught at St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh, Franciscan University and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, and has worked with the diaconate formation programs in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.  She served as a consultant to the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth and is a member of the Catholic Women’s Forum Advisory Council.  She co-authored the books Get out Now:  Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late and Where Did I Come From? Where Am I Going?  How Do I Get There? as well as articles in Our Sunday Visitor and First Things.  She and her husband Michael have ten children ranging in age from 27 to 8.

On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux

On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux

Thursday, May 7, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Join us at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) on Thursday, May 7th as we cosponsor, together with the Lumen Christi Institute, a webinar on Zoom with Willemien Otten. Dr. Otten will speak on “On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux” as a part of the spring webinar series Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) were contemporaries who both emerged from the new twelfth-century schools. But their dispositions, personalities, and eventual conflict have come to represent a conflict between the rising scholastic and the traditional monastic cultures of learning. Professor Willemien Otten will introduce these iconic twelfth-century personalities, the direction of their work, and the theological controversy that put them on opposing sides.

---

Willemien Otten is Professor of Theology and the History of Christianity; also in the College; Associate Faculty in the Department of History, Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. She holds an M.A. and PhD from the University of Amsterdam. Otten studies the history of Christianity and Christian thought with a focus on the Western medieval and the early Christian intellectual tradition, including the continuity of Platonic themes. She is coeditor of Eriugena and Creation (2014), On Religion and Memory (2013), and the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (430–2000) (2013). Her most recent project is entitled “Natura Educans: The Psychology of Pantheism from Eriugena to Emerson.”

Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church

Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church

Thursday, April 30, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Together with the Lumen Christi Institute, we will cosponsor the fourth installment of the spring webinar series, Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. Renowned medievalist Barbara Newman, will present on “Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church.” The webinar will be held on Zoom at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) on Thursday, April 30th. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

A German Benedictine Abbess, Hildegard (1098-1169) produced works of visionary theology drawn from her mystical vision and one of the largest surviving collections of medieval musical compositions.

As a female religious in the 12th century, she held a remarkable influence in the Church through preaching tours across Germany and correspondence with popes, emperors, and other monastic reformers. In 2012, she was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

---

Barbara Newman is John Evans Professor of Latin; and Professor of English, Religious Studies, and Classics at Northwestern University. Her work is focused upon medieval religious culture, comparative literature, and women's spirituality. She has authored or edited 10 books, most recently a translation of Mechthild of Hackeborn's The Book of Special Grace (2017)  She has also written three books on Hildegard of Bingen: an edited volume, Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World (1998); an edition and translation of Hildegard's collected songs, Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (1988, rev. 1998); and Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (1987). Professor Newman has been a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities at Northwestern. Professor Newman is a past president of the Medieval Academy of America 

Anselm of Canterbury on the Rationality of Faith

Anselm of Canterbury on the Rationality of Faith

Thursday, April 17, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Join us on Thursday, April 16th, at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) for the second installment of the Lumen Christi Institute’s Spring Webinar Series, Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. Professor Aaron Canty, who teaches theology and medieval thought at Saint Xavier University, will present on “Anselm of Canterbury and the Rationality of Faith” on Zoom. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

Anselm was a startlingly original monastic writer and thinker who drank deeply of Augustinian and patristic theology but formulated his own theological and philosophical writings in spare and compelling chains of reasoning. His Why God Became Man, Monologion, and Proslogion each chart new ways to practice 'believing in order to understand (credo ut intelligam).'

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

Aaron Canty is professor of religious studies at Saint Xavier University. His current research focuses on the development of medieval Christology, eschatology, and scriptural exegesis. He is author of Light and Glory: The Transfiguration of Christ in Early Franciscan and Dominican Theology (Catholic University of America Press, 2011), A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages, eds. Franklin T. Harkins and Aaron Canty (Leiden: Brill, 2017), and an edition of excerpts from John of La Rochelle’s commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels (in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum).