Two priests in two separate parishes (US and Canada) attack transgender people, one talking about a "crime." There is no group of people in the church so relentlessly excluded, marginalized and persecuted as LGBTQ people. They have to listen to this even in homilies on Sundays.
Often, open-minded and thoughtful Catholics profess surprise, and even disbelief, when I share what I hear every day from LGBTQ people, who report how they are treated in their parishes. But homophobia (and transphobia) and outright hatred are still a part of the Catholic church.
Ironically, the Gospel reading for Sunday (which both of these priests would have read) was Jesus saying that each of us is the "light of the world" (Mt 5:13-16). Well, LGBTQ people are also lights in our church. And we have to stop hiding their lights under our bushel baskets.
