Pope Francis has once again doubled down in his battle against gender theory, lamenting “the rise of ideologies that directly attack the family project” and denouncing efforts to obliterate sexual differences in society.
In a meeting in the Vatican Thursday morning with members of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Pope Francis criticized “the uncertainty and disorientation that affect the fundamental affections of the person” in modern society, which in turn “destabilize all familial and societal ties.”
Francis said that this gender confusion “contradicts the plan of God, who has entrusted the world and history to the alliance between man and woman.”
By its very nature, he said, this alliance requires the ability to recognize sexual differences “as a richness and a promise, not as a reason of subjection and abuse.”
“At the current juncture, marital and family ties are tested in many ways,” the Pope said.
“The recognition of the dignity of man and woman involves a correct appreciation of their mutual relationship,” Francis said, so how can we get to know humanity “without learning it through this difference?”
Whereas it is impossible to deny the contribution of modern culture to rediscover the dignity of sexual differences, he went on, for this very reason it is “very troubling to find that now this culture seems controlled by a trend to obliterate these differences rather than resolving the problems that assail them.”
The Pope has been an outspoken critic of the LGBT lobby’s efforts worldwide to impose same-sex marriage and theories of gender fluidity that separate gender from biological sexual differences and blur the essential differences between men and women.
His constant criticism of “gender theory” and “gender ideology” have earned him the scorn of LGBT activists, who have accused the Pope of ignorance and being “out of touch” with reality.
Earlier this month, Salon magazine reacted fiercely to the Pope’s comments against indoctrinating children in gender theory, where the pontiff described gender ideology as a “global war against the family.”
In his article titled “Pope Francis’ LGBT failure,” Salon writer Nico Lang compared the Pope’s “harsh words” against gender theory to “the right-wing extremists who have sought to prevent trans people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.”
The Pope’s ideas are “biblically inaccurate” and outdated, Lang insisted.
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