Posted on 05/27/2026 2:18:55 PM PDT by ebb tide
The Swiss Bishops’ Conference (SBK) announced Tuesday that it is “strongly” opposed to conversion measures which seek to align one’s sexual inclination or “gender identity” with one’s God-given sex.
The Swiss bishops issued their statement in support of a conversion measure ban for children and young adults that has been proposed in the Swiss Parliament. As the bill explains, conversion measures, which are “also known as so-called ‘conversion therapy’ or ‘homo healing’ — aim to ‘repolar’ the homosexual predisposition of a person into a heterosexual one or to change the gender identity of affected persons."
“The SBK strongly rejects conversion measures,” the bishops declared in their Tuesday statement. “They are not compatible with a pastoral mandate based on acceptance, veracity and protection of the person. In the religious context, such practices can become spiritual abuse when people are shamed, threatened, or manipulated in the name of God.”
“Practices that aim to change or suppress sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression contradict the dignity of the person as the image of God and can cause significant harm,” said the SBK.
The Swiss bishops thus suggest that the homosexual orientation and “transgender” identities are not intrinsically disordered but are even good, in contradiction to Catholic doctrine, which declares that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’” Pretending or believing that one is a member of the opposite sex is also disordered and was long widely recognized as a mental illness or a fetish.
The Swiss bishops’ statement could even suggest that the homosexual orientation and confused “gender identities” are preferable to the natural sexual orientation and identity. If homosexuality and heterosexuality were merely morally equal, neutral alternatives, there is no reason one should be opposed to someone’s free choice to seek out one of the alternatives.
Moreover, both homosexual relationships and transgender interventions inflict physical violence, by surgical mutilation, for example. Conversion therapy, by contrast, aside from being freely chosen, largely consists of counseling to overcome unwanted homosexual feelings or find acceptance with one’s true sex, the effectiveness of which is backed by studies as well as testimony from those who have benefited.
The Swiss bishops thus are logically inconsistent, besides radically contradicting Catholic teaching. The Swiss bill itself is explicitly open to “medically indicated measures for gender realignment,” demonstrating a double standard in favor of measures that oppose one’s own natural sex.
If passed, the law would ban for minors and young adults “all measures that are aimed at a change (‘polarity change’) or suppression of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression (SOGIE).”
The justification given for Swiss Parliament’s proposed conversion ban for minors is that it “views homosexuality and transidentity as ‘diseases’” and allegedly “can demonstrably lead to great suffering, psychological damage up to suicidality for those affected and have no therapeutic benefit.”
Opponents of “conversion” or “reparative” therapy commonly elicit opposition to the practice by invoking fringe and long-since-outdated practices such as electric shock and other forms of physically harmful interventions which are no longer practiced today.
Moreover, homosexuals and those with gender dysphoria have significantly higher baseline levels of psychological problems, including depression and anxiety, which may obscure the outcomes of any intervention they are involved in.
Malta, Germany, France, and Greece already have national conversion therapy bans, and similar draft laws are being prepared in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.
In the U.S., while more than 20 states have enacted conversion therapy bans, the March 2026 Supreme Court opinion Chiles v. Salazar ruled against Colorado’s ban, citing First Amendment rights violations. The decision may affect the enforcement of the other states’ conversion therapy bans.
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Ping
makes perfect sense - do not undergo any treatment or counseling to change the disordered orientation which leads to grave mortal sin.
/s
“Intrinsically Disordered”, your excellencies ...
Read your Catechism. Read your Bibles.
More pervert Bishops.
Misinformed.
Of course they oppose it.
Can’t have the world mad at them.
I walked away from this church years ago and do not regret it, I haven’t lost my faith, just wanted to distance myself from the homo priests.
What should one expect from a bunch of guys (Notice I did not write gays.) who wear slips and dresses and hats that would make Minnie Pearl envious.
Stick a fork in it - the catholic church is done.
The Bishops are concerned that it will be harder for them to get a date.
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