New York Catholic Church Sparks Controversy with “God is Transgender” Art Exhibit

The exhibition, which has since closed, was titled ‘God is Trans: A Queer Spiritual Journey’ and was shown at the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle in Manhattan last Sunday through three paintings depicting the “queer spiritual journey” as “sacrifice, identity and communion”.

Among the statements released by parishioners, one of them told the New York Post that the church had gone too far in pursuing its “liberal agenda.” “The church should not promote this,” said the devotee, who did not want to provide his identity to the outlet. “I understand that there are transgender people. I pray for all the people, but enough is enough. It seems that they are trying to impose the agenda on others. Also, the parishioner revealed that the priests would not answer questions about the exhibition. “You can’t put this on the altar and then hide. That’s what gets the church in trouble,” he added.

However, other parishioners reveal that they are in favor of this type of exhibition. “I don’t understand art, but this church is very liberal, which is why I love it,” said Cherri Ghosh, 80, adding, “They’re really in the present when others aren’t.”

In the text accompanying the artwork, artist Adah Unachukwu, a student at nearby Fordham University and an intern with the gay rights group GLAAD, connected gender identity to religion. «The painting ‘Sacrifice’ and the complementary act of it speak of the need to shed an old life and personality in order to focus on your spiritual need. There is no devil, only the past. Identity is the most impressive part of the exhibition. What does holiness look like? What does your god look like? Are these two representations that can be merged? ”, could be read in the exhibition.

The position of the Catholic Church

The exhibition in favor of the transgender movement, carried out by the artist Adah Unachukwu, conflicts with the teachings of the Vatican. In this sense, in 2019 the Vatican published a document that stated that it is a “fact” that “the sex of a person is a structural determinant of masculine or feminine identity.”

Finally, Pope Francis described, in an interview in the newspaper ‘La Nación de Argentina’ this year, gender ideology as “dangerous” and said that “there are somewhat naive people who believe that it is the path of progress and does not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or various sexual options from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it annuls differences, and that annuls humanity, the richness of humanity, a personal type, as a cultural and social, the differences and the tensions between the differences”.