THE Book of Genesis says that God created man in His image. And He saw that it was good. Then, he saw that it was not good that man is alone. He created the woman as his companion and He said: “go and multiply”.
In the course of history, there were men who felt that they needed a male companion in life and there were women who felt that they needed a female companion in life. Then the social doctrine of the Church called this homosexuality and it said that homosexuality is an objective disorder. I don’t believe that God creates disorders. He saw that his creation was good. What a man and a woman do together in bed is nobody’s business, neither is it anybody’s business what two men or two women do together in bed.
Now Pope Francis says that gender theory "annihilates man as made in God’s image". He has unequivocally criticized gender theory and the encouragement of the idea that individuals can choose their own gender. He is dismayed regarding this theory, particularly its impact on children. The Pope said: “We are living a moment of annihilation of man as image of God. Today in schools they are teaching this to children – to children! – that everyone can choose their gender”.
The Pope condemned what he called “ideological colonizing” backed by “very influential countries” and textbooks supplied by “persons and institutions who donate money”. The “first and last name” of this colonization, 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 the epoch of sin against God the Creator. He is intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, and we are doing the opposite”. He says “We must reflect on this: It is the epoch of sin against God the Creator”.
An LGBT group in the US reacted and 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”. However, the American College of Pediatricians issued a position paper entitled “Gender Ideology Harms Children”, warning against the physical and psychological dangers posed by advocates of transcenderism. 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 they agreed with Pope Francis that it was “terrible” that children in schools are being taught that they can choose their gender, they said it was important to remember the context in which Pope Francis was speaking, in a Q&A session. There is a tradition of schools being completely controlled by the state. The (communist) legacy lives on.
In our countries today 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 they agreed that we live in an epoch of “sin against God the Creator”, they said that the teaching of the Church on this matter was well set out with Catechism of the Catholic Church and that the You cat catechism was a useful guide for younger people.
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