The Archdiocese of Toronto — the Catholic Church’s spiritual leadership in the GTA — has weighed in on the side of inclusivity after a much heated debate at the Catholic school board over gender issues.A report will be submitted at a Toronto Catholic District School Board meeting Thursday evening saying the archdiocese would support the board in changing its code of conduct policy to include controversial terms — gender expression, gender identity, family status and marital status.Those terms are identified in the Human Rights Code as prohibited grounds of discrimination.“The archdiocese will accept (the terms),” the report reads, provided that the amended policy “be interpreted through the lens of the Catholic faith as articulated by the teachings of the church and protected in legislation.”Still, it will be up to the 12 municipally elected trustees to vote on what to do. The report notes the matter is “urgent” and “time-sensitive” because school boards were supposed to have updated their codes by Nov. 4 to include the language, as directed by the Ministry of Education. But the issue has been mired in controversy for months and has deeply divided the TCDSB community, leading to heated public debates, with some making hostile comments about the LGBTQ community and calling on trustees to “stop this Luciferian nonsense” and “repent.”The report is the first time that the archdiocese’s views on the matter have been made public. The archdiocese, led by Thomas Cardinal Collins, is made up of nearly 2 million Catholics, 225 parishes and four missions.The report is the result of ongoing discussions behind the scenes, between the archdiocese and board staff in trying to come up with language for TCDSB policy that follows the law and respects Catholic teaching.In its report, board staff propose wording for the policy that it says is “interpreted through the lens of ...
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