Unachukwu could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
CNA asked Gibson if the display’s new title promotes gender ideology, to which he responded he didn’t know what gender ideology is.
“I don’t know. That’s one of those kinds of buzzword phrases. I don’t know. Some people are going to read it that way, I suppose. I don’t even know what gender ideology is, frankly,” he said.
“All of these terms people will define in their own way, kind of depending on where they’re coming at an issue from. I don’t think there’s any intention to do that, whatever gender ideology is,” he added.
Pope Francis has denounced gender ideology and said in a recent interview that it is “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” today because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.”
Gibson informed CNA that the placard with the new title and description, and an iPad accompanying the display were stolen on Tuesday. The sign has since been replaced.
Paul Snatchko, the spokesperson for the Paulist Fathers, told CNA he didn’t think that the display promoted gender ideology.
“It is one artist’s entitling of her display as part of an eight-person art exhibit,” he said. “It’s just the artist describing their art.”
Snatchko said the mission of the Paulist Fathers is to “go beyond the church walls and encounter people who are not currently hearing about God and Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and faith.”
The art exhibit in the church is a way to bring people in who may not otherwise enter and for the church to “have a conversation with the larger culture,” he said.
CNA reached out to the Archdiocese of New York for comment but received no response.
(Story continues below)
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When CNA asked Snatchko on Monday if the Paulist Fathers believe it is acceptable to say that God is transgender, he answered “no.”
Father Rick Walsh, the pastor of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, is shown preaching in the church in an online video dated June 28, 2020, saying that “Christ is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.”
In the video, he says: “We hear voices from time to time that speak to us female members of our shared body of Christ. And they say we are the weaker sex and that we cannot serve in positions of leadership anywhere including the church. Are they not aware that we who are women are now living in Christ; that we are Christ? Christ is a woman. In Christ, I am also a woman. Once you belong to Christ, you belong to all others who belong to Christ as well.”
“Some say that those of us who are LGBTQ members of Christ’s body do not belong to the body of Christ, totally denying our baptism. Are they not aware that we who are LGBTQ are also living now in Christ; that we are Christ? Christ is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.”
“In Christ, I am lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. Once you belong to Christ, you belong to all others who belong to Christ as well.”
CNA reached out to Walsh for comment but did not receive a response. According to a letter Walsh sent to parishioners on April 27, he announced that he is being reassigned and will no longer be at the parish after June 11. He did not say where he was being reassigned.