Dear Parishioners,

This Wednesday at the Faith Night adult formation class, I will begin a three-part study of gender ideology and how this is an offense against the dignity of the human person and the Creator, who has created us male and female. My goal will be first to establish some key tenets of this new gender ideology and what has been happening in society the last few decades. Then I will establish a Christian/Catholic response from Scripture and Church teaching and ways we can compassionately respond. The dates for Faith Night in November will be Nov. 8, Nov. 15, and Nov. 29. There will be no Faith Night on Wednesday, Nov. 22 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

I will share a few passages from Church teaching we will be considering:

• Vatican II, Gaudium et spes #14: Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity...For this reason, man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. See also Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) #364
• Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) #369: Man and woman have been created...on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God...
• CDF, Letter on the Collaboration of Men and Woman, 2004, #8: “Sexuality characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but also on the psychological and spiritual...” It cannot be reduced to a pure and insignificant biological fact, but rather “is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, ...of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love.” Pope Francis, Teachings on Gender Ideology
• Laudato si’, #155: “Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, 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.”
• Interview with La Nacion, March 10, 2023: Gender ideology, at this time, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. . . . Why is it dangerous? Because it dilutes differences, and the richness of men and women and of all humanity is the tension of differences. ...Pope Francis, Teaching on Clinical Interventions
• Address to Pontifical Academy for Life, May 10, 2017: “The biological and psychical manipulation of sexual difference, which biomedical technology allows us to perceive as completely available to free choice—which it is not!—thus risks dismantling the source of energy that nurtures the alliance between man and woman and which renders it creative and fruitful.”