Church of Sweden Declares that it is Now a Trans-Inclusive Institution

[Vetus Ordo]

Clergy of Europe's largest Lutheran denomination declare their churches are trans-inclusive

In The Christian Post.



Sweden's flag is seen near the Stockholm Cathedral in Gamla Stan or the Old Town district of Stockholm, Sweden, June 9, 2010. | Reuters/Bob Strong.

Hundreds of clergy, staff and congregants of the Church of Sweden, Europe's largest Lutheran denomination, have declared in an open letter that it is now a trans-inclusive institution.

"We write to you from a church that is also trans," reads a line from the letter, titled "Personal Letter to You Who are Trans," posted on a dioceses website and addressed to trans-identifying people who serve and attend the church, Summit News reported.

Signed by around 1,000 priests, deacons and members and published on the official website of the Västerås diocese, the letter also seeks to explain how the church could be described as trans.

"A church is made up of people. People are different. We have confirmees, employees, churchwardens, elected representatives, nonprofits, and other parishioners who define themselves as trans people. The church also consists of trans people," it says.

The letter criticizes media outlets for being silent as so-called "radical right-wing Christian groups" and "trans-excluding" feminists allegedly conspire to take away the rights and dignity of transgender people, according to RT.

"This contributes to the normalization of trans hate," the signatories claim. "We believe in a church and a God who welcome people beyond power, national boundaries, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex, and gender identity. A humanity in all the colors of the rainbow, absolutely amazing and infinite in its diversity. We are different and that is good. And God saw that it was good."

Some members slammed the letter's declaration.

"And this, right here, is the last drop. So the church is trans, and trans is the new norm. This is the most smarmy and disgusting text I have ever read. Thank you and goodbye, Church of Sweden," a member tweeted, according to CBN News.

In 2017, the denomination told clergy that they needed to start using gender-neutral language when referring to God, and avoid masculine terms such as "He" and "Lord."

The Associated Press reported at the time that the guidance was issued in an update to the Church's handbook that deals with terms of language, liturgy, hymns and other aspects.

In 2009, the left-leaning Swedish Church voted in favor of blessing same-sex marriages and elected Eva Brunne, the world's first openly lesbian bishop.

Many of the members of the Church of Sweden are nominal believers and have been leaving the religion in record numbers.

In 2018, insiders said the denomination was expected to lose over 1 million members over the following 10 years.

Sputnik News at the time translated the official Members in Motion report from the denomination, which found out that 85,848 Swedes left the Church in 2016, followed by 93,093 members in 2017.

[Insanis]

Such is life outside the Church: no protection and guidance from God.

I wonder what Luther would have done had he known the future?

[Innocent Smith]

I'm starting to reassess myself.  That this issue needs to be addressed is certainly testament to a total failure and collapse of Christendom.  So what are we supposed to do now?

The Church is a place for sinners.  I don't recall an acceptable list of sins ever handed my way.  Perhaps I missed the memo.

[Prayerful]

The Church of Sweden did retain something close to Catholic orders until the sixties. Gustav I wasn't bothered to change them, or like Henry VIII wanted no doubt over the standard of his new order of bishops. Church of Sweden was forced to ordain women in the sixties, making the orders dubious. Yet I'm not any sede uses them in the way Old Catholics orders have been used. They too have an element of doubt as a number of Old Caths pretend to ordain women, although the most successful East European Old Cath communities reject the pretended ordination of women, the Mariavites of Poland excepted.

Sweden is strange. Very fine medical services, an enlightened reaction to COVID, striking a balance between the political impossibility of ignoring it and giving it too much credence, as most did. Yet their migration policy is wholly anti-white.

[lauermar]

-WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC OF INCLUSION---I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT INCLUSIVE LITURGY IN SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES, AND IF ANYONE KNOWS PLEASE ANSWER. MY QUESTION IS AT THE BOTTOM.-

I am not Spanish, but I took AP classes in the language and culture starting in Jr. High through college from 1972-1995. When I worked in Public Health, I spoke it daily. The language is beautiful and entirely binary. Persons, inanimate objects and descriptors are male/female.  In contrast, English is neuter except for pronouns relating to male or female persons. For example, a small church is neuter in English. In Spanish, it is feminine: iglesia pequena.  Latino is man, Latina is woman. Latinos (plural) means men and women together or just men.

Lately I wondered if the strong masculine Spanish culture could resist the evils of non-binary transgenderism. I believe the transgender poison first started in America and spread its filth all over the world through the internet. As I watched this beast grow, I silently asked myself, could they destroy Spanish by getting rid of the masculine o or the feminine a, turning everything into babble? How will they do it?

My worst fears were confirmed the other day by Biden's speech. He referred to Latinos as "Latinx." I googled to see if such a word exists, because it surely did not when I was a student. Sadly, it does today. As I figured, this garbage started in 2004 on the internet: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx

The Catholic church has been using inclusive language in the vernacular English mass for awhile. It dropped overt masculine references and restructured sentences. Since English is mostly neuter, the change isn't as obvious. I assume that churches in Spain and Latin America are aldready doing some kind of sentence restructuring. But they can't effectively use "they" as a neuter for single and plural like some are trying to do in English. "They" isn't neuter, it is ellos or ellas, which are binary terms.

Here comes my question:  How far are Spanish speaking churches going with inclusive language? If they drop the masculine o and feminine a in the mass, and substitute @ or x as the article suggests, the change will be extensive. It will become babble. Just try saying your name or a sentence without an o or an a. In re-writing the liturgy, they will have invalidated the mass. This signals an outright refusal to respect the majesty of God's creation of males and females, and it is a thorough rejection of biblical teachings. You change the language, you change the intention. Change the intention, invalidate the mass.

[Optatus]

Here comes my question:  How far are Spanish speaking churches going with inclusive language? If they drop the masculine o and female a in the mass, and substituting @ or x, the change is extensive. They will have effectively invalidated the mass. This signals an outright refusal to respect the majesty of God's creation of males and females, and it is a thorough rejection of biblical teachings. You change the language, you change the intention. Change the intention, invalidate the mass.

I don't have a conclusive answer to your question, but I would guess that "Latinx" is a dead-end for the left. Everything I've seen points to Hispanophones recognising it (accurately) as the imposition of an Anglophone contrivance upon them. Now the wokists are in a situation where they are engaging in a sort of linguistic and ideological colonialism after spending many decades bemoaning the horrors of our colonial history. I have little doubt that "Latinx" will become increasingly normative among deluded white progressives, but I don't see actual Hispanophones buying it.

[lauermar]

@Optatus, aren't Millennial Hispanics rejecting their Catholic faith? Might they go along?

[Optatus]

@Optatus, aren't Millennial Hispanics rejecting their Catholic faith? Might they go along?

That seems to be the case, yes. Many are becoming Evangelicals and Pentecostals, while others have simply fallen to secular atheism.

The thing, at least as I understand it, is that their resistance to "Latinx" isn't out of any kind of Catholic sensibility, but out of anti-colonialism/imperialism, especially that perceived to be American. The American left has walked into a bit of a trap where if they pursue this gender-neutral nonsense, they'll score brownie points among their non-Spanish-speaking limousine liberal peers, but will be regarded as cultural imperialists by Hispanophones, even those on the left. If you look about online, you'll find self-avowed Marxists shoot back at the use of "Latinx" by mockingly referring to the people who say such things as "gringxs".

[lauermar]

Gringx!  LOLOLOL   

Oh the irony of Hispanics thinking of Anglo-Saxons as colonialists! In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue on orders from Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella if I recall correctly. That is why the woke establishment regards Columbus as a colonialist, and wants to remove him from the national holiday list.

https://ap.gilderlehrman.org/resource/columbus-reports-his-first-voyage-1493

[Michael Wilson]

I don't see how Spanish could become gender neutral without destroying itself.
Re. "Invalidating the Mass"; how about changing the very words of our Lord in the Consecration of the Wine from "Many" to "All men" ("muchos" -"todos los hombres")? A change that St. Thomas in the Summa and the Catechism of the Council of Trent indicated would alter the "form" of the Sacrament and therefore render it doubtful or even invalid.

[lauermar]

I don't see how Spanish could become gender neutral without destroying itself.
Re. "Invalidating the Mass"; how about changing the very words of our Lord in the Consecration of the Wine from "Many" to "All men" ("muchos" -"todos los hombres")? A change that St. Thomas in the Summa and the Catechism of the Council of Trent indicated would alter the "form" of the Sacrament and therefore render it doubtful or even invalid.

Sedevacantists think that the Novus Ordo mass still uses the words "all." Which is because they don't attend the N.O. It did for a time. Currently, it does not. The words of consecration changed back to "for many." I don't know when it happened, but criticism arose and it changed.

[Fleur-de-Lys]

My impression is that various forms of gender-inclusive and gender-neutral language are just starting to be used by some academics, mostly in writing, and only in referring to people. We are still a very long way from doing away with grammatical gender in Spanish and other Romance languages.

[Jayne]

I don't see how Spanish could become gender neutral without destroying itself.
Re. "Invalidating the Mass"; how about changing the very words of our Lord in the Consecration of the Wine from "Many" to "All men" ("muchos" -"todos los hombres")? A change that St. Thomas in the Summa and the Catechism of the Council of Trent indicated would alter the "form" of the Sacrament and therefore render it doubtful or even invalid.

Sedevacantists think that the Novus Ordo mass still uses the words "all." Which is because they don't attend the N.O. It did for a time. Currently, it does not. The words of consecration changed back to "for many." I don't know when it happened, but criticism arose and it changed.

This varies from country to country.  Under Benedict's papacy he pushed for this, but there was quite a bit of resistance.  Without the support of local bishops, it is easy for these bad translations to continue.

[lauermar]

It may not be far from changing in Romance languages. The New England Journal of Medicine is read around the world and it proposed eliminating binary gender on birth certificates. This could become standard medical practice everywhere.

Regarding Sweden, the article did not state how they're dealing with the most basic prayer of all Christian churches: the Our Father as taught by Jesus,  a man. Or the Holy Trinity. You can't neuter that. They will have to go pagan or occult. Oh no, wait. They can't do that either. Occultists and pagans frequently reference male and female spirits!

[Fleur-de-Lys]

It may not be far from changing in Romance languages. The New England Journal of Medicine is read around the world and it proposed eliminating binary gender on birth certificates. This could become standard medical practice everywhere.

I offered you my perspective as someone who uses Spanish and other Romance languages on a daily basis. You are of course free to take it or leave it. As for the Mass, I can't speak to that specifically. I can't remember the last time I attended a Mass in the vernacular. What I can attest to is that the language as it is used on a daily basis is not adopting these innovations with regard to gender except among some academics. That is my observation, for what it is worth.