2+ week, 2+ day ago (802+ words) Tennessee's law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but it allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes. U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care. From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation's thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers. More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities. Most Catholic health care institutions have taken a conservative approach and not offered gender-affirming care, which may involve hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments. The new directives…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (405+ words) El papa Le'n XIV causa pol'mica por declaraciones sobre qu' significa ser provida. A Downey High School senior will get a chance to ask Pope Leo questions on Friday in a digital Q&A during the second day of the National Catholic Youth Conference. Ezequiel Ponce, 17, said he was "absolutely ecstatic" when told he was chosen to participate in the event." "I remember being in school and just doing my regular thing in class, and I get the email, and my jaw drops,'' he told Angelus News, the multimedia news platform of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles." "It's the only thing I could think about. I remember telling my parents and they were super excited for me." Pope Leo will address about 15,000 young people between the ages of 14-18 at the conference, which is being held this year at Lucas Oil…...

2+ week, 13+ hour ago (867+ words) Pope Francis dons a headdress during a visit with Indigenous peoples at Maskwaci, the former Ermineskin Residential School, Monday, July 25, 2022, in Maskwacis, Alberta. The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts from its vast ethnographic collection to Indigenous peoples from Canada, as part of the Catholic Church's reckoning with its role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas. Pope Leo XIV gave the artifacts, including an iconic Inuit kayak, and supporting documentation to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said it would return the items to individual Indigenous communities "as soon as possible." A joint statement from the Vatican and Canadian church described the pieces as a "gift" and a "concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity." The items were part of the Vatican Museum's ethnographic collection, known as the Anima Mundi museum. The collection has been a source of…...