by Michael J. O’Loughlin | America Magazine

The U.S. bishops voted on Friday to begin a process that could lead to rules formally banning Catholic hospitals from offering medical procedures and therapies sometimes collectively described as gender-affirming care.

Meeting in Orlando for their spring meeting, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly decided via a voice vote to begin a process of revising the Ethical and Religious Directives, guidelines that draw from theology and church teaching and regulate the roughly 2,200 Catholic hospitals and health care facilities in the United States.