Pope Francis has unequivocally criticised gender theory and the encouragement of the idea that individuals can choose their own gender.
A transcript of his closed-door conversation with the Polish bishops during his visit to their country for World Youth Day reveals his dismay regarding the theory, particularly its impact on children, and sparked in turn criticism of his response from LGBT activists.
“We are living a moment of annihilation of man as image of God,” he told the bishops. “Today, in schools they are teaching this to children – to children! – that everyone can choose their gender.”
The Pope condemned what he called “ideological colonising” backed by “very influential countries” and textbooks supplied by “persons and institutions who donate money”. The “first and last name” of this colonisation, he said, “is gender”. Pope Francis then referred to conversations he had had with Pope Emeritus Benedict on this issue.
“Pope Benedict, who is well, and has a clear mind, he was telling me: ‘Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator.’ He’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite,” Francis told the Polish bishops, ending by telling them to “reflect on this: ‘It’s the epoch of sin against God the Creator.’”
LGBT groups in the US were the first to respond. Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic LGBT advocacy group, said that the Pope was ignorant about LGBT issues. “Nobody chooses a gender identity. They discover it. Transgender people come to know themselves in a process similar to the way that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people discover their sexual orientation,” he said.
However in March this year, the American College of Paediatricians issued a position paper entitled “Gender Ideology Harms Children”, warning against the physical and psychological dangers to children posed by advocates of transgenderism. Failing to identify with one’s biological sex signals a psychological disorder that must be dealt with and not pandered to, they argued.
Asked whether he agreed with Pope Francis that it was “terrible” that children in schools are being taught that they can choose their gender, Paul Barber, director of the Catholic Education Service, said it was important to remember the context in which Pope Francis was speaking, “in a Q&A session in Poland”. “In Eastern Europe,” he said, “there is a tradition of schools being completely controlled by the state. The [communist] legacy lives on.” In England and Wales, he pointed out, “we have more diversity. We don’t have that central control. This is not the context in which Catholic schools operate … we have control of the curriculum.”
Asked whether he agreed that we live in an epoch of “sin against God the Creator”, he said that the teaching of the Church on these matters was well set out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and that the Youcat catechism was a useful guide for younger people.
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