Dans ce JOURNAL je partage de temps en temps de l'actualité et un aperçu de ma vie de chrétien catholique et de prêtre pour rejoindre d'autres qui désirent contribuer au bien commun et pour faire avancer l'ouverture personnelle à Dieu qui fait vivre toute l'humanité et veille sur nous. G.S.
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It is difficult to have any sympathy for the shooter, however troubled this young person was, which is reported to have gone on for years apparently. Whether it is the perpetrator or the victims, what happens to us when we die and leave our body behind? As soon as human beings die, they find themselves, having left their body behind, in the radiant Presence of the Creator of the Universe.
According to those who died, revived, and then lived to testify to what happened; many are surprised to find God not at all the picture of a judge with a big gavel waiting to pound the desk and pronounce judgement. On the contrary, they discover that God is Love in Person; such that a soul who just died finds itself surrounded by the brightest light they have ever seen and and immersed in an immense warmth of love. As a result, the soul immediately sees all the truth about itself and its whole life... all at once... which for many, may be a shock. It certainly would be for a shooter who just killed innocent people, but perhaps also for a victim who was not at all expecting to die so suddenly.
Apparently, there is no need for God to pronounce judgement, since the truth becomes evident to the soul, and it either accepts the truth, along with whatever consequences must follow; or it sinks into misery, rebellion, and anger, but cannot avoid enduring the same consequences. That is why Christians pray for the souls of the dead, in order to offer them the spiritual support of compassion, solidarity, and intercessory prayer; i.e. prayer on their behalf.
In this case, however, the obvious tragedy - and it is a monumental tragedy with the deaths of two adults and six children at last count - also draws attention to another tragedy, one which is more hidden. While commentators are wondering how such a tragedy could have come to pass, there seem to be few willing to acknowledge that a factor may very well have been another, perhaps subtle, tragedy that occurs at the physical and psychological mutilation of adolescents, who are still children, in the name of gender ideology.
When medical science and ministries of health and social services allow themselves to be governed by the subjective feelings of children and adolescents, instead of relying on their professional knowledge and experience and helping them come to terms with their reality, one is reminded of films in which observers declare: "the inmates have taken over the asylum".
As a society, we are willing to put our trust in health and social services when their professionals and their institutions and agencies operate according to empirical evidence, verifiable science, and the best medical and social service practices. However, with the relatively new procedures attempting to change a human being from one gender into another; we are no longer talking about science, but rather ideology. Giving expression to "how one feels" makes sense in various art forms, but not really in medicine. The human body and psyche is not "craft material".
When we look into real medical science, biology and psychology, psychiatry, and other related fields of practice; empirical evidence has developed the prevailing wisdom that when puberty initiates the period of adolescence, individuals go through fluid and tumultuous emotional and psychological states. However, these states are temporary and transitional. This continues until the individual makes some sense of its life and situation, comes to terms with being male or female, and discovers that each gender opens up on a very wide range of variation in appearance, condition, emotions, possibilities, and expression.
Some people emerge with more clarity than others, and sooner than others, but one can expect to have to wade through "swampy regions of uncertainty and doubt" for a decade or more until a beginning of resolution can be attained. Having good parents, good mentors, good peer friends, good teachers and pastors, and good neighbours also helps.
Given the fluidity, uncertainty, contingency, and change inherent in the period of adolescence, it makes little sense to "carve up" an adolescent body with scalpel and other intrusive medical instruments, chemicals, and other substances in order to attempt to "freeze" the person in one particular state; thereby short-circuiting the natural process of human maturation.
Allowing any ideology to "trump" medical and psychological science and wisdom to chase after the adolescent's fantasy or hallucination of "who they feel they truly are" makes no sense. How they feel is most likely to change. To try to freeze them in time, to mutilate an adolescent's body in order to try to "erase" one gender and attempt to replace it by the other gender, is undeniably a truly violent act or series of acts. There is no lack of testimonies by people who, having undergone such surgery, have emerged a decade or two later with profound regret at the realization of what a colossal mistake it was.
Human history demonstrates without doubt that any society that allows "the inmates to run the asylum" is headed for unmitigated disaster. To hold any contrary view is to get lost in the fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen first published in 1837. It tells the humourous tale, containing a dire warning, of an emperor who, out of vanity and folly allows himself to play out an illusion that his tailors have succeeded in creating a fabulous set of garments. In fact, what began as a joke turns into an embarrassment. The new clothes don't actually exist, or are invisible.
The palace staff and household and all the people of the town go along with the illusion, for fear of reprisal should they question it, and the emperor actually goes on parade to display his wonderful "new clothes". The illusion holds until one little boy with a loud voice cries out to his mother, "But momma, look, the emperor has no clothes!" The emperor hears the boy, is at first put off, but then the bubble of his illusion bursts, and with a laugh, he admits the folly of the situation. He forgives everyone, and with a good sense of humour, encourages everyone to have a good laugh.
I wonder how long the terrible bubble of this "gender ideology" will go on carving up adolescent bodies, creating profound trauma, and generating all manner of terrible consequences for all those involved, near or far.
"Lord God, our Creator, have mercy on us, poor deluded and foolish creatures, and rescue us from our folly and from the terrible violence we perpetrate in the name of erroneous ideologies on the innocent youths who are temporarily confused and in need of adult compassion, mentoring, and guidance. Grant us the courage to shatter illusions and declare the truth with kindness."
Dans ce JOURNAL je partage de temps en temps de l'actualité ou un aperçu de ma vie de chrétien catholique et de prêtre pour rejoindre d'autres qui désirent contribuer au bien commun et pour faire avancer l'ouverture personnelle à Dieu qui fait vivre toute l'humanité et veille sur nous. G.S.
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© 2004-2026 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2004-2026 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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