Bishop warns against ‘ideology of gender’

THE BISHOP of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies, has written to Catholic schools and colleges warning of the “dangers of the ‘ideology of gender’”, writes Megan Cornwell.

In a letter sent last week to head teachers, chairs of governors and heads of religious education in the diocese, he emphasised the duty of Catholics to welcome people who may “experience difficulty identifying with their biological sex”, but warned against the promotion and acceptance of transgender, “which is beginning to permeate social consciousness with far-reaching consequences”, he said. Gender ideology is the theory that personal choice is sufficient to determine a person’s gender, rather than biology.

In his letter, Bishop Davies offered educationalists a summary of papal and magisterial teachings on the human body and sexuality, quoting from Pope St John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Today, the Church is being called to defend this very truth of the human person,” Bishop Davies wrote.
The Pope has also recently spoken out about the “global war” that he says is being waged against marriage in the form of “the theory of gender”.