The Catholic News Agency reports that the French Catholic Church will no longer require that the priest enter the parents' sex on baptismal registry forms.  The move is in response to shifting family norms within France:

The French Catholic bishops' conference permanent council has approved a recommendation to remove references to the sex of parents on baptismal registry forms.

"The increasingly complex situation of families in France makes it extremely difficult to draft Catholic acts, especially regarding baptism," Bishop Joseph de Metz-Noblat of Langres, president of the French bishops' conference Council for Canonical Questions, wrote in a letter dated Dec. 13, 2018.

He said, because of complex family situations, chanceries in several dioceses in France had "faced problems of vocabulary."

According to canon law, he said, "ministers cannot refuse sacraments to persons who opportunely ask for them, while children cannot be held responsible for the situation of their parents."

As a result, de Metz-Noblat said he had worked with two other commissions to produce a new baptismal registry formula that will require "names and first names of parents or other holders of parental authority," which he wrote would make "the simple acknowledgment of one's family situation, without bearing moral judgment on it."

It would be easy to castigate the bishops for bowing down before societal trends that have drifted so far from the biblical notion that there are two sexes and that one needs both to create a baby.  The bishops are correct, however, that the situation is complicated and that children should not be denied baptism because of the parents' choices.

Additionally, from the French church's viewpoint, there's an even more important trend for the bishops to accommodate, although the article does not mention it.  The Catholic Church in France is suffering from a devastating drop in numbers, as this article from three years ago explains:

According to the latest study of Catholics in France, the "Eldest Daughter of the Church" is almost dead.

A new sociological study conducted in France revealed that only 1.8 percent of the entire French population are practicing Catholics. The survey further determined that "French Catholicism has become a festive reality" for those who do practice their faith.

Results showed that most French Catholics who do go to Church only do so on certain major feast days and for baptisms, marriages or funerals. Just five percent of Catholics in France attend Holy Mass on a regular basis, according to the poll.

With that dramatic decline in church attendance, French Catholics cannot afford to alienate those members of the population who still believe that an infant must be baptized to save his soul.  The bishops are therefore acting sensibly when they move to open the door to anyone who wishes to partake of the spiritual benefits the Church has to offer.

Drew Belsky adds: On the contrary, the bishops are not acting sensibly at all, except perhaps from a purely worldly (which is to say, un-Catholic) perspective.

That "children should not be denied baptism because of the parents' choices" is an opinion, and my colleague is entitled to it, but it's not a Catholic principle, and any bishop who implements it errs scandalously.  The blog Canon Law Made Easy, referring to the relevant canons, spells out the reasoning:

[A]ccording to canon 843.1, Catholics have the right to receive the sacraments if they opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them. ...

But with every right comes a corresponding obligation, and this right to receive the sacraments is no exception.  Canon 843.2 states that pastors of souls have the duty to ensure that those who ask for the sacraments are prepared for their reception.  In the case of parents who present their infant child for baptism, it is the parents who must be adequately prepared, as they are asking for a sacrament on behalf of another person who is too young to request it for himself. ...

The Church seeks to avoid situations in which a child is baptized a Catholic, but then, due to the negligence and indifference of his parents, is not raised to practice the Catholic faith.  For this reason canon 868.1 n.2 notes that for a child to be baptized, there must be a realistic hope that he will be brought up in the Catholic religion.

The whole post is worth reading if you want the true Catholic take on this truly Catholic matter.  Suffice it here to say that even if it makes many Catholics and non-Catholics squeamish, there are good, solid theological reasons — for the child, the parents, and the Church — to withhold baptism from certain infants, and "transgender" parents who blatantly reject the Faith by their public conduct run afoul of those reasons.

American Thinker is not supposed to be a religious publication, so I don't want to get too much into the religious weeds here.  But it's worth noting that the Catholic Church started out small and viciously persecuted.  St. Lawrence, compelled by the Roman emperor to bring forth the Church's treasures for confiscation, presented the poor of his parish.  He was later grilled to death.  Bishops, including the French ones, should be prepared to protect the Faith they have received at all cost.  Any bishop who spits on the treasures and the authority passed down to him in the name of what "Catholics cannot afford" fails in his office.