Connected Through Christ support group for parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria has grown in numbers since its founding in 2022 and is now growing spiritually with the appointment of Father Daniel Moloney as chaplain.
Gender dysphoria is defined as clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence, including a desire to change sex characteristics, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.
Father Moloney, who serves as assistant chaplain at the Columbus St. Thomas More Newman Center, located adjacent to Ohio State University, has been appointed to minister to a local group of parents striving to guide their children in the truth of who God created them to be.
The group was formed in October 2022 to bring together parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria in a faith-based setting. The parents spend time in discussion, sharing stories, insightful tips and wisdom with each other, and prayer.
Participants meet once a month at a diocesan Catholic parish. The meeting time and location is confidential, and individuals interested in attending are screened beforehand.
Since The Catholic Times first published an article on Connected Through Christ in September 2023, the group has received multiple inquiries from in and outside of the country, including from residents of Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Montana and Canada, as well as seminarians seeking guidance in helping those who approach them about the topic.
Due to the high volume of interest, Connected Through Christ has expanded with the establishment of new chapters in Cincinnati and Detroit.
As the Columbus support group has continued to grow, Bishop Earl Fernandes appointed Father Moloney as chaplain to offer spiritual guidance to those in the diocese. Father Moloney shared that his first meeting with the group was not only helpful for participants but for him, too.
“It was the most eye-opening thing for me because it was the pain, the difficulty, the sadness, also the determination to figure out what’s really going on, not listening to the experts who say you should affirm and transition, and I came away very impressed that the group could do this,” he said.
Father Moloney also serves as the diocesan chaplain of Courage, a Roman Catholic apostolate for men and women who experience same-sex attraction, and EnCourage, a ministry within Courage that is dedicated to the spiritual needs of parents, siblings, children, relatives and friends of individuals who experience same-sex attraction.
He noted that when parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria turn to resources such as Google for guidance, they are often told to affirm their child in transitioning. There can be social pressures, too, to abandon Church teaching and submit to cultural ideology.
“There’s this kind of constant pressure that this mental illness puts on the family,” Father Moloney recognized. “The culture says just affirm them and everything will be great, but that’s not true.”
As chaplain, his role is to help parents and family members keep a supernatural perspective, which includes discussing the truths of the faith and remaining strong in them.
Joan (a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the individual), a member of Connected Through Christ, is grateful for Father Moloney’s guidance. She founded the group after her daughter confided in her that she was experiencing gender dysphoria, and she has remained part of the group ever since.
Previously, parents or family members left meetings “kind of deflated, like they’ve gotten everything off of their chest and they shared,” she recalled. “There hasn’t been that piece of the spiritual guidance that Father is providing now. So it’s been a complete turnaround, and these meetings feel so much better now that we have his support and his words and his guidance through all of it.”
Joan said that having a child who experiences gender dysphoria can impact families in various ways. She said relationships are often strained, and it can be difficult to find trustworthy mental health professionals.
“It’s a complex problem, and it takes a huge emotional toll on parents and families, so Connected Through Christ is able to provide a soft place to land with others who are like minded and can walk in faith together,” she explained.
Father Moloney’s spiritual guidance for parents includes remaining firm in hope. In a past Connected Through Christ meeting, Father Moloney gave a talk on the virtue. As chaplain, he encourages parents to “zoom back,” he said, and have a perspective of eternity.
“Part of the message I wanted to give to the parents who are very worried about their children, I said, ‘Hey, our goal is that they get to heaven,’” he explained. “If they damage their bodies through hormonal transitions – which sounds like it does terrible things to your bone structure and to your reproductive organs – you might not have any grandchildren, you might not have a child who’s healthy, you might have them go through all this and then realize it’s a mistake, but we’re playing a long game here, and if they do a lot of bad things and end up in heaven, it’s a win.”
Father Moloney offered the example of St. Augustine. He said the saint and bishop, who is declared a Doctor of the Church for his writings and contributions to Christian theology and philosophy, lived a “dissolute” young adulthood. St. Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, remained faithful and never ceased in praying for him.
“Adult children do all sorts of things that parents disapprove of, but the job of the parent is always going to be to pray for the child, and ultimately, keep that big perspective in mind,” Father Moloney noted. “The craziness of every day is something – and the difficulties and the sadness – these parents are suffering.
“All of that is to be relativized a little bit because this world is passing away. We can keep our focus on the life to come and tell them, ‘OK, look, if you guys become saints, then your prayers for your children will be that much more powerful – so go become saints.’”
Father Moloney said the desire for a sex transition is often the symptom of an underlying problem. Many individuals desiring a transition are heavily online, he noted. Getting children offline by stopping social media, video games and getting them away from the virtual world and into the real world can be helpful.
He also advised not calling a child by their preferred pronouns or name, and not permitting a transition.
To socially transition would mean calling a child by an alternative name, using preferred pronouns and encouraging alternate-dress and hairstyle that do not align with their sex at birth. To medically transition would entail taking a child to a gender clinic and allowing them to start puberty blockers, receive cross-sex hormones or a sex-change operation.
“You want to figure out what’s the underlying problem because sometimes it’s just, ‘I don’t feel good,’ and in that sense, you can almost treat the desire for hormones as a kind of desire to do drugs that ‘make me feel better,’” Father Moloney explained.
“Part of the recommendation is, for parents (of children) who are underage, try to understand what the child is feeling, but don’t help them transition.”
He said children often turn to the internet to understand how they are feeling. They can come across online influencers who encourage them to have a sex transition, or influencers who share personal stories of feeling better after transitioning. Children experiencing gender dysphoria often present their parents with statistics and research, as well as medical or psychological conclusions, that sound convincing.
Father Moloney noted that, while not affirming a child or condoning a sex transition, parents should make sure their children know they are loved. For adult children, that entails knowing they are welcome at home.
“You want to love them and make sure that they feel like they’re able to come home,” he said. “You have a boundary that you’re not going to cross, like all adult children do with their parents, but the boundary is just the boundary. You love them and they’re welcome to come home as long as they’re willing to play by your rules … has got to be a constant message, the way the Prodigal Son felt he could come home.”
The Archdiocese of Detroit established a Connected Through Christ chapter after meeting with counterparts in the Diocese of Columbus last year. The archdiocese is eager to provide a support group for parents of children experiencing gender dysphoria to share their experiences, listen and pray for each other, said Brooke Warren, the archdiocese’s associate director for family ministry.
The goal is also to offer clarifications on Church teaching regarding gender and help parents accompany their child in a way that aligns with the Catholic faith and maintains the parent-child relationship, she said. Through initial phone conversations, the archdiocese will triage with parents to guide them to their next steps, whether the support group or professional help.
“We all notice a growing need for support in this area nationwide,” Warren said. “We hope that groups like Connected Through Christ will become more numerous, equipping more Catholics with the ability to educate others on the Church’s teachings and respond to struggling families in a pastoral way.”
Individuals interested in the chapter in the Archdiocese of Detroit can find more information at www.AOD.org/Connected-Through-Christ. For the chapter in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, contact CincyCTC@yahoo.com.
In the Diocese of Columbus, family members of children experiencing gender dysphoria who are interested in participating in Connected Through Christ will have an initial phone call with Father Moloney, who can offer guidance and then place them in a group meeting.
For more information, email Connected Through Christ at CTC@columbuscatholic.org or Joan at mamaslove4@yahoo.com.