'Deal with us': Kentucky Catholic monk, hermit comes out as trans

A Catholic monk in Kentucky came out as a transgender on Sunday, the religious holiday of Pentecost. Brother Cristian Matson, 39, who originally transitioned in college, converted to Catholicism in 2010, four years after transitioning. Matson came out with the permission of bishop John Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington.

"On Pentecost Sunday, Brother Christian Matson, a professed hermit in the Diocese of Lexington, has made it public that he is a transgender person," the Diocese said in a statement. "Brother Christian has long sought to consecrate his life to Christ in the Church by living the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He has consistently been accompanied by a competent spiritual director and has undergone formation in the Benedictine tradition. 

"He does not seek ordination," the statement from the Diocese read, "but has professed a rule of life that allows him to support himself financially by continuing his work in the arts and to live a life of contemplation in a private hermitage. Bishop John Stowe, OFM Cov., accepted his profession and is grateful to Brother Christian for his witness of discipleship, integrity and contemplative prayer for the Church."

Speaking with Religion News Service Matson, who is a diocesan hermit based in the Appalachian Mountains, said, "You’ve got to deal with us, because God has called us into this church. It’s not your church to kick us out of — this is God’s church, and God has called us and engrafted us into it."

Matson had tried to join a number of orders but was turned away before being put into contact with Stowe. Matson sent Stowe a letter in 2020 stating that Matson was transgender and wanted to join the church. Matson had contacted a canon lawyer who said that only priesthood and marriage were off the table.

"My willingness to be open to him is because it’s a sincere person seeking a way to serve the church," Stowe said of Matson. "Hermits are a rarely used form of religious life … but they can be either male or female. Because there’s no pursuit of priesthood or engagement in sacramental ministry, and because the hermit is a relatively quiet and secluded type of vocation, I didn’t see any harm in letting him live this vocation."

Matson took the vows as a diocesan hermit in August 2022 and renewed the vows in 2023. Matson said of Vatican documents outlining the biological differences in men and women, "Vatican-level documents that have come out on the subject have not engaged with the science at all."

"I can’t stand by and let this false and, at times, culpably ignorant understanding of what it means to be transgender continue to hurt people," Matson said of the timing of the decision to come out. "If I don’t say anything and allow the church to continue to make decisions based on incorrect information, then I’m not serving the church."