The Catholic Archbishops of Chicago and New York have issued a joint statement affirming that Catholic hospitals welcome patients who identify as transgender while also declining to perform sex-altering procedures.

It comes in reaction to a newly-proposed Government rule which would force Catholic health care facilities to offer gender-reassignment surgery.

In a statement published by America Magazine, Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Timothy Dolan of New York affirm their wholehearted support that all people, irrespective of age, sex, racial or ethnic background “without exception, receives the best health care that is their due” and this includes “people who identify as transgender”.

At the same time, the two Cardinals said that under the HHS-proposed rule “it would be considered discrimination for a health care facility or worker to object to performing gender transition procedures, regardless of whether that objection is a matter of sincerely held religious belief or clinical judgment”.

“Such a mandate threatens the conscience rights of all health care providers and workers who have discerned that participating in, or facilitating, gender transition procedures is contrary to their own beliefs”.