VATICAN AGAINST GENDER CHANGE.

A danger, a threat to the future – especially of children -, a step backwards for humanity. With explicit harshness the Holy See intervenes, through the Filipino Archbishop Bernardito Auza observer at the UN in New York, against the gender ideology, a theory claiming there is no difference between men and women and their sex can be chosen.

On more than one occasion the Pope had intervened on the gender ideology issue, explicitly pronouncing the term and stigmatizing it as “ideological colonization”. And on more than one occasion Monsignor Bernardito Auza had also addressed – en passant – the subject in his speeches at the UN headquarters. The speech given on Tuesday 20 March – and reported on the Vatican News site – was instead an in-depth focus that made the Holy See’s stand on the matter even more evident. The archbishop expressed “concern for the teaching of gender ideology to children, so that boys and girls are encouraged to question, from an early age of life, whether they are boys or girls, suggesting that “everyone can choose his or her sex”, but at the same time he strongly reiterated “the dignity and the right not to be discriminated of those who do not feel represented by their biological sex”.

Strong words that come a few weeks after the controversy, sparked and limited to the usual ultraconservative Catholic circles in opposition to of Francis’ pontificate, on an alleged “opening” of the Holy See to tryptoreline, a drug that blocks the development of puberty in adolescents who live the discomfort of “gender dysphoria”. “Opening” given by an interview with Professor Laura Palazzani, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who expressed in the Vatican media a moderate opinion on the drug and its administration, but that according to these circuli minores of detractors, is to be considered a real “betrayal” of the Pope.

Polemics aside, Archbishop Auza – taking the floor at the meeting in question entitled “Gender equality and gender ideology: protecting women and girls”, promoted by the UN to take stock of the situation of women in the world and their rights – wanted to review Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s statements on the issue. Starting with the post-synodal exhortation Amoris laetitia, which in paragraph 56, states that the ideology of gender “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family”.

“This ideology – we read again in the papal text quoted by the Vatican delegate – leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female… It is a source of concern that some ideologies of this sort, which seek to respond to what are at times understandable aspirations, manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised”.

“It needs to be emphasized that “biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated”, stressed the prelate in the wake of the words of the Pope. “On the other hand, “the technological revolution in the field of human procreation has introduced the ability to manipulate the reproductive act, making it independent of the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. In this way, human life and parenthood have become modular and separable realities, subject mainly to the wishes of individuals or couples”.

Auza recalled how once it used to be “clear” the understanding of being a man or a woman: it was a matter of chromosomes. “Today, this clarity has been undermined by the gender ideology that assumes a personal identity unrelated to sex. “It is one thing to understand human frailty or the complexity of life, and another to accept ideologies that claim to divide the inseparable aspects of reality into two,” the archbishop stressed. Substituting this gender identity to biological sex – he added – has strong repercussions “not only in terms of law, education, economy, health, safety, sport, language and culture”, but also “in terms of anthropology, human dignity, human rights, marriage and family, motherhood and fatherhood” as well as on the very fate of women, men and “especially children”.

The Vatican representative then quoted the encyclical Laudato si’, which, in paragraph 155, states that the acceptance of one’s own body “ is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift”, whereas “thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation”. “ Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology”, wrote the Pontiff in his “green” encyclical. “Valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different… Therefore, “It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.

Bergoglio had repeated the same concepts verbally to the bishops of Puerto Rico met in June 2015, pointing out that the complementarity of man and woman “is called into question by the so-called gender ideology in the name of a freer and fairer society. The differences between man and woman are not for opposition or subordination, but for communion and generation”.

“When the natural and complementary duality of man and woman is questioned – Monsignor Auza observed – the very notion of human being is undermined. The body is no longer a characteristic element of humanity. The person is reduced to spirit and will and the human being becomes almost an abstraction”.

The Vatican representative also warned against the teaching the gender ideology to children, so that boys and girls are encouraged to question, from the earliest age of their existence, whether they are boys or girls, suggesting that “everyone can choose his or her sex”. “Why do they teach this?” he asked, quoting the Pope again in his speech to the Polish bishops in Krakow in 2016, “Because the books are provided by the persons and institutions that give you money. These forms of ideological colonization are also supported by influential countries. And this is terrible!”.

The prelate concluded his speech by calling for “safeguarding our humanity”, which “means first of all accepting and respecting it as it was created”. Our sex, as well as our genes and other natural characteristics – he said – “are objective data, not subjective choices”.