A hospital affiliated with the largest Catholic health network in the country received millions of dollars for a robot that assists with transgender sex change operations, according to a stunning new report.
Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, which is located in San Francisco, California, is part of the Dignity Health network. In 2019, Dignity Health merged with Catholic Health Initiative to become CommonSpirit Health, the largest Catholic health network in America. The network includes numerous hospitals, including Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, that perform medical interventions that intend to change peoples’ sex.
A ribbon-cutting event held in October 2022 reveals that the “Saint Francis Foundation awarded SFMH over $2.6 million to purchase the hospital’s second da Vinci system,” a robotic platform that assists with surgeries, including those that attempt to change peoples’ sex, according to the 64-page report by the Lepanto Institute, a Catholic think tank.
“Without the Foundation’s funding, SFMH would be unable to adequately support the transgender community and patients of their additional service lines,” the site also reads.
Saint Francis Memorial Hospital lists the various sex change operations that their gender institute performs, including hysterectomies, scrotoplasties, penile inversions, vocal cord surgery, and even “jaw contouring,” among others.
“Laparoscopic peritoneal pull-through flaps with vaginoplasty” is also included on the “gender affirming surgery” list. The Da Vinci robot platform has been specifically highlighted for its ability to assist laparoscopic surgery. The platform has also been used for hysterectomies
Though the hospital is affiliated with America’s largest Catholic health network, it even produced a YouTube video with a trans-identifying individual who underwent a sex change operation at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. The video promotes sex change surgeries as a way to live as your “authentic self.”
Saint Francis Memorial Hospital has also received an “excellence in Gender Confirmation Surgery Accreditation based on the number of surgeries performed at the hospital,” according to their site.
Meanwhile, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital states on its website that it is “a part of CommonSpirit Health, a national health care ministry that shares the above mission, vision, and values.”
CommonSpirit Health’s 2022 Annual Report discusses the Saint Francis Memorial Hospital’s Gender Institute, stating that “Since 2016, Saint Francis Foundation has provided more than $7.1 million to the institute for state-of-the-art robotic surgical equipment,” and training before noting that “funding directly supports and improves local health care delivery to transgender and gender non-conforming patients and their families.”
The hospital also boasts that “At San Francisco’s Saint Francis Memorial Hospital Gender Institute, philanthropy is helping to deliver culturally competent, high-quality and affordable health services to transgender patients.”
Meanwhile, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital received a total of $2,128,662 from CommonSpirit in 2019 and 2020 according to CommonSpirit’s IRS 990 forms.
CommonSpirit Health is sponsored by the Catholic Health Care Federation, which is legally defined as a “public juridic person within the meaning of the code of Canon law for the Roman Catholic Church,” according to Page 28 of CommonSpirit’s 990 IRS form.
It goes on to read:
As a public juridic person in the Church, CHCF is the juridical equivalent of a diocese or parish or religious order in the Catholic Church. As a public juridic person, CHCF is not merely affiliated with the Catholic Church; it is the Catholic Church, an official part of the Church itself, with a munus or duty assigned to it by the Church, and able to act publicly in the name of the Church.
A sponsorship document from the Catholic Health Care Federation, which sponsored CommonSpirit, explains the process behind the approval of the organization by Catholic authorities in Rome. The Catholic Health Care Federation explains that it is accountable to the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, “the ecclesiastical authority that granted Catholic Health Care Federation Public juridic personality.”
The document goes on to explain the significance of juridic personality, explaining that “a public juridic person may acquire, retain, administer, and alienate property in the name of the Roman Catholic Church.
Rather than just claiming a Catholic identity, CommonSpirit is able to identify as Catholic because it was sponsored by an organization given authority by the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, located “in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.”
Meanwhile, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops specifically addressed transgender medical interventions in a statement earlier this year, where they unambiguously stated that “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures.”
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