Auteur/autrice : Mathilde Daniel

With the Oxford synod, Gordon introduces his deeply interwoven themes: the political theology of transphobia, the complicity of secularism in transphobic violence and the recovery of a history of transition — all towards the politics of trans theology. Perhaps it is time, Gordon argues, to « lean into the irrational pleasures and sublime possibilities of a nonsecular transness. »

Transphobia’s political theology

Gordon’s political theology implicates transphobia as a crucial underpinning of colonialism, white supremacy and Christian hegemony. Modern understanding of gender developed simultaneously with the Western invention of whiteness, and many contemporary accounts of gender deviance also include racial betrayal. A pattern emerges of womanhood shoring up whiteness, and of proximity to transitioned bodies as a racialized corruption of womanhood; a cosmology also emerges, where the debauched influence of the East must be kept at bay with racialized gender.

The most pervasive through line of Glorious Bodies is antisemitism, and Gordon uncovers startling congruencies between early modern antisemitism and our own versions: namely that Jewish cabals threaten the bodily integrity of Christian children; whether by ritualistically circumcising Gentile boys, or funding youth gender-surgery rackets. Gordon traces this paranoia about a « degendering cut » from the Oxford synod, through John Milton’s Samson Agonistes and all the way to our current hysteria about what CatholicVote recently called « experiments on kids. »

The purpose of transphobia, in Gordon’s appraisal, is twofold. On one hand, gender props up race, and on the other, no moral panic generates higher returns than the wild imaginings of what « they » are doing to « our » children.

Secularism: Compromised and compromising

Ironically, Holinshed ascribes the motivation of reformation to the Oxford synod, positioning the events within the progressive momentum associated, according to Gordon, with the « modernizing thrust of a secularization » long associated with the Protestant Reformation. This nascent attempt at balancing ecclesiastical and governmental prerogatives, however, enforced a « violent, and retrograde form of Christian particularism. » The apostate was either crucified or burned.

That cozy relationship constitutes Gordon’s first objection to a secular trans paradigm: far from protecting trans people, secularism, gestating as it did alongside Reformation, Enlightenment and Empire, merely « [reinscribes] cis white Protestantism while excising religion’s affirmative trans capacities. » Liberalism’s ostensible separation of church and state remains selective to this day, argues Gordon, who, while noting the Christian right’s use of trans panic to inflame the public, reminds us that it is still the secular state who sets itself to criminalizing transness and seeking to « eliminate transition through the apparatuses of incarceration and state violence. »

Just as the archbishop of Canterbury ruled heresy but let the Crown do the dirty work, so too does Pope Francis now deem transition an existential threat, while the federal courts spill the ink on the church’s behalf. It is no coincidence, Gordon argues, that the same impetus lies behind the two unholy alliances: transness is secularism’s kryptonite. Trans embodiments will always present a « vector of heresy and corruption » where the religious and public domains collapse together.

Gordon’s second objection to a secular transness is its perpetuation of one of transphobia’s chief tenets: that secularism is the « precondition of possibility for trans life, » and transition a scientific novelty. This belief folds into accusations, like Francis’, that transition represents a technocratic interference amounting to idolatry.

Recovering the history of transition

Continuing its refutation of transition as a modern phenomenon, Glorious Bodies rejects clinical paradigms as inherently pathologizing and facilitating medical overreach in trans peoples’ lives. Towards liberating transition from modern medicine, Glorious Bodies insists that transition is a long-standing practice.

The important thing, Gordon writes, is not whether any one figure is « really » trans, but that whether it be Anatolian Galli, Sumerian Gala or Indian Hijras, people have lived as multiple sexes and surgically modified their genitals for a very, very long time. Yet recovering these histories necessarily requires an engagement with pre-secular culture, and thus theology. Rather than responding to Christian transphobia with a secular override, Glorious Bodies attempts to locate a « trans imaginary in early modern theology. »

Christianity’s trans-capacities

Gordon concludes that theological ground is too important to cede, and scours early modern theology to recover queer Christian imaginings. Though much has been written about medieval traditions which assign queer imagery to holy figures, many of these idiomatic veins continued into the early modern period.

In his « Lucus 34, » the Anglican cleric and poet George Herbert portrays the apostles jostling for « access to the breast, » where St. John cries: « Ah now, glutton, let me suck too! … / I claim the milk / Mingled with the blood. » Here Jesus is endowed with female physiological capacities, and elsewhere Herbert « inserts Jesus at the apex position of a lactational chain, » creating an image of Jesus’ breast milk flowing into the mouths of infants via their mothers, to whom Jesus « dost dispose … a part. » Herbert says that infants who suck their mothers also suck Christ, who becomes in Herbert’s imagining the original and ultimate mother, the wellspring of all flows.

Stigmata also offers Gordon a rich source of material, particularly since the phenomenon was prevalent among women. Cardinal Ippolito d’Este sang the praises of 16th-century stigmatic Lucia Brocadelli, saying that in her « Jesus Christ Himself was transformed into a virgin. » D’Este’s Latin inflections are all masculine, indicating the descent of the grammatically male Jesus into the form of a girl.

St. Catherine of Siena — perhaps the most canonically indisputable stigmatic aside from St. Francis — pushed the gender variance inherent to mysticism into rapturous frontiers. Her 14th-century biographer, Dominican friar Raymond of Capua, recorded in The Life of St. Catherine of Siena his own eyewitness account of St. Catherine’s miraculous transformation into « the face of a strange man » complete with a « short beard the colour of corn. » Clearly, those highly favored are no more bound by sex than Jesus the birthing, breast-feeding man.

In the twinkling of an eye

Opening Gordon’s acknowledgements is an epigraph from 1 Corinthians 15:51-52:

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

That beautiful concluding phrase reminds me of a homily I once heard on the solemnity of Corpus Christi. The priest invited us to imagine Jesus’ glorified body, and then to imagine our own. He reminded us that it was that same glorified body we were preparing to eat. I left that Mass remembering why I became Catholic.

Glorious Bodies, for me, had the same effect. In his acknowledgement, Gordon writes, « The theological concept of glory is fundamentally about transition, our openness to the experience of being changed in ways that allow for rebirth, transformation, and self-disclosure. » Maybe this is why, even after his resurrection, Jesus kept his side open and available to the fingering of St. Thomas. He was reminding us to remain open, and promising us that he was always open — the way the canal is always open for new birth.

In her 2023 doctoral thesis, Maggie S. Kelly writes that Jesus is the « Ultimate Other — he is a baby born of a virgin; a man who mothers; a divine human who dies and rises again in three days’ time; the second person in the Holy Trinity. » With his jolting, rigorous book, Gordon reminds us not only of Jesus’ otherness, but also that his otherness is inscribed on his very body, and on the bodies of his favorites.

McElroy notes that the phrase « secularist crisis » is found « constantly in Murray’s works. » It built on the « acceptance of the theory that commitments of faith and prayer were private and personal choices which should not be allowed to enter the social arena. » This « onrushing tide of indifferentism » would yield only « a shallow humanism that could lead to ennui and despair. » The darkness of the assessment is bracing.

The spiritual crisis was in the temporal order, not in the church. Murray was devoted to the theory of the two swords devised by Pope Gelasius which he called « the Magna Carta » of the church’s freedom. The fifth century pontiff had written to the Emperor Anastasius, « Two there are, noble emperor, whereby this world is ruled in sovereign fashion. The consecrated authority of the priesthood and the power of the king, and of these two the responsibility of the priest is by so much the weightier. » The teaching admitted that secular authority came from God, and was not derivative of clerical authority, but that the secular realm could not interfere with the res sacrae or sacred things.

McElroy examines Murray’s tracing of the historical developments that led from the medieval Christian commonwealths to the secularist crisis of his own time. Unlike University of Notre Dame historian Brad Gregory who argued that the starting point for secularization could be found in the Protestant Reformation, Murray thought the rise of absolutist monarchies is what destroyed the two swords’ balance and threatened the liberty of the church. 

The French Revolution introduced a secularist theory of society. The « supposed neutrality of the nineteenth century liberal state masked a secularist agenda which sought to displace the traditional role of Christianity in Western society. » All these paved the way for totalitarianism in his own time. McElroy’s ability to summarize Murray, here and throughout the work, leads one to conclude his mind is not only sharp, but able to synthesize, a key intellectual quality in a pastoral leader.

McElroy details the influence of two European thinkers on Murray’s work, Henri de Lubac and Jacques Maritain. While it is easy to pass over the few pages that note that influence, they touch on one of the key issues in the book: Murray’s embrace of dualism. McElroy, in the last chapter of the book, evaluates Murray’s reliance on natural law, rather than biblical theology, as the basis of his public theology and poses the question: « does his refusal to utilize the powerful symbols of biblical theology now invalidate his body of writing as a foundation for a contemporary American public theology? » McElroy gives a robust explanation for, and defense of, Murray’s decision to keep any sectarian arguments and symbols away from his public theology.

This dualism of the temporal and sacred orders in society, however, gives rise to a deeper debate about dualism between grace and nature, a debate that has dominated much of post-conciliar thinking. The late David Schindler in this paper delivered at a Notre Dame forum argued that de Lubac’s theology was different from the dualism Murray espoused in important and foundational ways.

Later, in his book Heart of the World Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism and Liberation (reviewed favorably by me here and unfavorably by my friend Fr. Joseph Komonchak here) Schindler raised similar criticism of Murray by employing the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, a colleague of de Lubac’s. 

It should be noted that the influence of de Lubac on Murray that McElroy cites was before the Second Vatican Council, when both theologians were tangling with, and losing to, the integralist Roman theological authorities. It was after the council and Murray’s untimely death in 1967 that de Lubac, von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger founded the journal « Communio » and the debate on dualism took off.

The new archbishop may not have much time to write on this issue anytime soon, but it cuts through some of the most important issues surrounding the interpretation of the documents of Vatican II.

Successive chapters deal with the issue of secularism in the cultural realm, the political order, and in international politics. All three chapters delve into the nuances of Murray’s thought, while pointing out the times when his arguments appear dated.

The analysis of American culture is especially penetrating. Murray argued that the traditions of civic republicanism, with its emphasis on « integrity, public service, civic unity and social dialogue, » and Calvinist morality, which « produced a strong sense of social virtue and self-sacrifice, » had become atrophied. They no longer served as the kind of cultural bonds able to withstand the technological secularism and philosophical pluralism which created strong centrifugal cultural forces. 

He drew heavily on the writings of two of the nation’s outstanding public intellectuals, Walter Lippmann, one of the founding editors of The New Republic, and Adolph Berle, a professor of law at Columbia University and member of Franklin Roosevelt’s « brain trust. » Murray thought that the forging of a public consensus had no better friend than the Catholic intellectual tradition, and he confidently entered the elite debate while at the same time noting that « the masses in the United States had been more faithful to the tradition of reason than the ‘wise and honest’ had been. »

The chapter on renewing the political order is brimming with keen insights. My favorite was this:

But anxious as Murray was to see religious values involved in the formation of public policy, he was just as anxious to insure that theology not rigidly control political policy. For too intimate a bond between religious beliefs and the actions of the state would lead to « the peril of the corruption of both — the corruption of religion and the corruption of the state. »

Religious values were essential to establish the order of justice on firm ground, but governmental policies must shift with changing times and circumstances in ways that religious values do not.

The chapter on the international order contains the most frequent instances of datedness. Murray was writing during the twin nightmares of fascist totalitarianism and Cold War militarism. His patriotism was pronounced and vivid. « Murray’s writings during the 1940s betray a pervasive sense of confidence that the post-war era would be markedly different from the previous century, » McElroy writes, « and that a mass-based regeneration of the moral bases of international politics was not only possible, but likely. » He was not alone in this hope and would not be alone in its disappointment.

If the first four chapters of this book consist mainly of McElroy elucidating Murray’s thought, the final chapter is his defense of that thought. His positive, but not uncritical, assessment of Murray is shaped by three questions. Methodologically, does natural law language furnish Americans with the best, perhaps only, means for discussing the role of religion in public life? Topically, are the issues Murray addressed and the framing he used still the most important issues facing Americans? And, prescriptively, does Murray’s application of natural law to America’s ills still work, or have the problems changed so much that they must be abandoned?

In answering these questions, as noted, McElroy takes on the issue of dualism and Murray’s critics. He also thinks Murray would reject the religious right’s effort to inject religion into the public square: Because of the pluralism of our society, « any effort to recreate the moral order of the United States on the bases of specifically sectarian warrants will only succeed in furthering the divisions in American society. »

One passage especially stands out. McElroy writes: « In exposing the premises and the ramifications of philosophical pluralism, Murray’s public theology can help to bring people of the United States to see that it is possible to embrace a meaningful ethical code for social life which is not in any way intolerant or parochial, and that the alternative to embracing such a code is not tolerance and pluralism, but chaos and the domination of self-interest. » McElroy’s application of Murray’s thought to the issues of abortion, pornography and other social issues is brilliant but you’ll need to buy the book and read it lest that application be turned into a bumper sticker.

In fact, this is my primary take away from reading McElroy’s book on Murray’s social ethics. We live in a time when the nature of political campaigns and the easy hostility of social media reduce so much of our political discourse to bumper sticker sloganeering, reading a book like McElroy’s is something like an intellectual retreat. He invites the reader to engage Murray’s thought not as an arcane remnant of a distant past, but as evidence of one great mind wrestling rigorously with the cultural and political problems of his day in ways that are still relevant to our wrestlings today. There are no cheap shots. There is no ducking of tough questions. There are no intellectual shortcuts. McElroy’s book is not an easy read; it is challenging.

When you put it down, you realize just how brilliant is the mind of the man the pope just sent to be the archbishop of Washington.  

That McElroy’s appointment was announced during a heightened moment of political transition for the United States — the same day that Trump’s election to president was certified by the U.S. Congress — was seen by some observers as a signal that the Vatican is paying close attention to current events in the nation’s capital.

« I think the Vatican wants this kind of church leader to be the archbishop of Washington right now when Trump is about to take office, threatening to deliver on his promises on the deportation of immigrants. That’s very important, » said Massimo Faggioli, a theologian and church historian at Villanova University. 

Faggioli told the National Catholic Reporter that McElroy’s is « one of the most consequential appointments » in Pope Francis’ pontificate. He said « a more cautious Vatican » would likely not have chosen McElroy to lead one of the country’s prominent archdioceses.

« Many of us thought he was too progressive to be the archbishop of Washington, D.C., and that appointing him to the nation’s capital was going to be too bold, too strong a statement, because he is far more progressive than the center of the [U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops] on gay rights, synodality, immigrants, on almost anything, » Faggioli said.

McElroy’s calls for « radical inclusion » in the church, including for LGBTQ persons and divorced and remarried Catholics, has at times elicited anger among conservative Catholics; one bishop in 2023 appeared to suggest he was a heretic. 

News of McElroy’s appointment to Washington prompted pointed criticisms from conservative voices on social media. Bishop Joseph Strickland — the firebrand prelate who was removed from his east Texas diocese by Pope Francis in 2023 — went so far on X as to call McElroy « corrupt » and a « McCarrick clone. »

However, McElroy’s pastoral approach and public remarks have garnered appreciation from groups like New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ Catholics.

« We are confident that Cardinal McElroy can provide a strong Catholic voice affirming the human dignity of LGBTQ+ people and the need for laws that will protect them, » New Ways Ministry said in a Jan. 6 statement.

Meanwhile, Arlington, Virginia, Bishop Michael Burbidge issued a prepared statement where he said he looked forward to collaborating with McElroy as « a brother bishop and neighbor. »

« Cardinal McElroy’s arrival as Archbishop of Washington in the Holy Year 2025 is an opportunity to implore God’s grace to strengthen all of us in the virtue of hope, and renew our commitment to be witnesses and messengers of hope for our nation and all our brothers and sisters, especially those in need, » Burbidge said.

Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, told NCR that she believes McElroy is « the right bishop at the right time for Washington, D.C. » to replace retiring Washington Archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory.

« Cardinal Gregory has been wonderful and very pastoral, but with the second incoming Trump administration we need someone of the strength and vitality of Cardinal McElroy and his particular clarity on the immigration issue, which is so urgent right now, » McGuire said.

At the Jan. 6 press conference, McElroy struck a conciliatory tone when asked about his plans to deal with Capitol Hill and the incoming Trump administration. He spoke of participating on a recent panel with other bishops who discussed ways to cultivate unity and overcome polarization.

« All of us as Americans should hope and pray that the government of our nation is successful in helping to enhance our society, our culture, our life, and the whole of our nation. That is my prayer, » McElroy said. 

A native of San Francisco, McElroy took a moment to speak in Spanish to Hispanic Catholics without referring to his prepared notes. He said that the Catholic Church is « the mother of all, especially in difficult times and in moments of suffering. »

In his prepared remarks, he touched on recent immigration debates.

« The Catholic Church teaches that a country has a right to control its borders and our nation’s desire to do that is a legitimate effort, » he said. « At the same time we are called to have a sense of the dignity of every human person. »

McElroy added that an indiscriminate mass deportation program of undocumented immigrants — which Trump has repeatedly promised — would be « incompatible with Catholic doctrine, » though he said that « we’ll have to wait and see » exactly what the Trump administration does on that front in the coming weeks and months.

That McElroy staked out that position on immigration enforcement was a sign for McGuire that the new archbishop will be « a very strong voice to counter the horrors that the Trump administration says it is planning to do. »

« Cardinal McElroy has taken the right position, that [immigration] is one of the life issues for the church, » McGuire said. « He’s done a wonderful job reminding people that being pro-life is not just about being against abortion. »

Besides stepping into a position where he will be expected by some to be a leading voice of public conscience in the Trump era, McElroy will take the helm of an archdiocese still recovering in some ways from revelations that one of his predecessors, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused minors and seminarians with near impunity for decades.

A Dec. 3 pastoral letter written to parishioners and the finance committee at St. Mary Mother of God Parish in Washington, D.C., reported that the archdiocese has run an annual deficit of $10 million since McCarrick’s behavior came to light in 2018. The letter, reviewed by NCR, said Gregory took steps to close that deficit, by implementing budget cuts in the archdiocese, installing a new assessment system of local parishes, and jump-starting the archdiocesan annual appeal « on better footing. »

Gregory, speaking to reporters after the news conference announcing his resignation, acknowledged that the McCarrick revelations broke a trust that hurt donations to the church. « It takes a long time to establish trust, » Gregory said. « It only takes a moment to break it. »

But Gregory also said that an even larger factor was shutting down churches during COVID-19 pandemic. « It clearly threw a wrench into archdiocesan finances, » Gregory said. 

Charitable contributions might have fled the archdiocese, but overall giving is not down — just shifted, Gregory said. « People have shifted their giving patterns, » the cardinal said. « Catholic Charities is booming. » 

McGuire said she knew that « many Catholics » in the archdiocese became « disengaged » from the local church because of McCarrick, who in 2019 was removed from the clerical state after the Vatican found him guilty of « solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power. »

McCarrick’s immediate successor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, resigned from office in 2018 amid public criticisms sparked by a Pennsylvania grand jury report that year that questioned his handling of abusive priests in the early 1990s.

In 2019, Gregory took the helm of the Washington Archdiocese, where he led with a pastoral touch though he at times also generated headlines. In June 2020, he criticized Trump’s visit to St. John Paul II National Shrine, adding that he found it baffling that any « Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles. » In April 2024, Gregory called President Joe Biden « a cafeteria Catholic » during an appearance on a national Sunday morning news program.

During the Jan. 6 press conference, Gregory said he intends to live in Washington, D.C. after McElroy’s installation Mass, adding that he never saw the nation’s capital as a « pass-through. » Gregory added that he will be available « to the best of my ability. »

In his prepared remarks at the press conference, McElroy spoke of a local church that had known « mountaintop moments » — most notably the visits of St. John Paul II, Popes Benedict XVI and Francis — but also « moments of failure and shame. » He mentioned the « massive betrayal of the young to sexual abuse, » as well as the « moral and financial reckoning for this betrayal which lie ahead for us. »

As far as his vision for the Washington Archdiocese, McElroy said developing one will « have to be a truly collaborative effort if it is to guide us through the challenges we now face and help us to seize the opportunities for pastoral growth that lie within our midst. »

McElroy added: « And it will have to be an effort continuously rooted in the risen Lord who is our hope and our strength. »