Dallas McInerney, the chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, told Australian media that he does not believe the bill is anti-transgender, and that schools should be able to offer pastoral care to students of all gender identities.
“[The bill] is more focused on learning and curriculum and less on the culture wars or individuals,” said McInerney. “It is around what belongs in scholarship and school instruction and what doesn’t.”
“Our support for the bill is contingent upon our schools being able to extend all support – pastoral, physical, counselling - [to] these kids in our schools,” he said.
Greg Whitby, executive director of Catholic education for the Diocese of Parramatta, disagreed; he told Australian media that efforts to ban discussion of gender diversity send the wrong message.
“If you seek to codify those things, you are putting a personal perspective on what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Whitby. He said that Catholic Schools NSW has “an ill-informed approach to what the issues may or may not be.”
In 2017, Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen, O.F.M. Con. of Parramatta diverged from other Australian bishops when he did not encourage Catholics in the diocese to vote against the legalization of same-sex marriage. Instead, he instructed them to “vote their conscience” on the matter.
In 2020, the diocese was criticized for its new religion curriculum which taught students about gender fluidity and atheism while supposedly fostering a culture of inquiry. A draft version of the curriculum contained questions about sexual identity but the curriculum did not list definitive answers to the questions.
The diocese defended itself against claims it had a “woke agenda,” and said that Catholic answers to the questions would be covered in the curriculum.
“Our Patron, St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, is famous for saying ‘never see a need without doing something about it’: there’s nothing new or woke in that,” the diocese said in August 2020.
The schools “remain strongly Catholic and proudly so,” said the diocese, adding that “We are working together to strengthen the faith of our young people, encouraging them to become attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible adults. The real news here is ‘Good News.’”
In a June 2019 document “Male and Female He Created Them,” from the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican criticized the confusion brought about by gender ideology.
“The Christian vision of anthropology sees sexuality as a fundamental component of one’s personhood,” the Vatican stated.
“The effect of [the emergence of gender ideologies] is chiefly to create a cultural and ideological revolution driven by relativism, and secondarily a juridical revolution, since such beliefs claim specific rights for the individual and across society,” the congregation wrote.