The Vatican will not permit transgender Catholics to be recognized by the church as godparents, according to a Spanish bishop who recently sought clarity on the matter.
Rafael Zornoza Boy, bishop of the diocese of Cadiz and Ceuta, wrote in a blog post this week that he contacted the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for guidance and was told by officials that godparents must lead a life consistent with the baptismal faith and fulfill certain spiritual obligations and duties.
The church, according to Reuters, said that transgender people "publicly show an attitude contrary to the moral requirement to resolve one's sexual identity problem according to the truth of one's sex."
The inquiry began earlier this year when Alex Salinas, a 21-year-old transgender man, asked to be recognized as his nephew's godparent at his baptism, according to the Spanish edition of The Huffington Post.
Pope Francis has signaled that he wants Catholicism to be more welcoming of those who may have been cast out of the church, including gay and lesbian people and women who have had abortions.
However, he has not made similar gestures to the transgender community and some believe that his recent encyclical, which called on followers to accept their bodies as a gift from God, made it clear that his position on that issue will not change.
The Vatican, said Zornoza Boy, portrayed its decision on transgender godparents not as a form of discrimination, but as an acknowledgement that they cannot fulfill their duties as laid out by the church.