Addressing participants in the international Symposium "Man-Woman: Image of God.” Pope Francis describes so-called gender ideology as the “ugliest danger” of our time, because it cancels out all differences that make humanity.
Pope Francis on Friday again spoke out against gender theory describing it as an “ugly ideology of our time”, because it erases all distinctions between men and women. To ceancel this difference “is to erase humanity. Man and woman, instead, exist in a fruitful ‘tension’”, he said.
The Symposium
The remarks came as he opened his address to participants in the international Symposium “Man-Woman: Image of God. Towards an Anthropology of Vocations” held in the Vatican on March 1-2.
The Congress is organized by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for Bishops, together with the Centre for Research and Anthropology of Vocations (CRAV) and is a follow-up to the previous 2022 Symposium dedicated to the theology of the priesthood.
Introducing his address the Pope said he still has a cold and asked his assistant Monsignor Filippo Ciampanelli to read it out for him, "so I don’t get so fatigued.”
In the prepared text the Pope reflected on the theme of the Congress which is aimed first of all at highlighting the anthropological dimension of every vocation.
The human person is a vocation
Indeed, he remarked, “the life of the human being is a vocation” which has a relational character: “I exist and live in relation to who generated me, to the reality that transcends me, to others and to the world around me, in which I am called to embrace a specific and personal mission with joy and responsibility.”
“Each one of us discovers and expresses oneself as called, as a person who realizes oneself in listening and response, sharing our being and gifts with others for the common good.”
This fundamental anthropological truth is sometimes overlooked in today’s cultural context, where human beings tend to be reduced to their mere material and primary needs. Yet, Pope Francis said , they are more than this: created by God in His own image, man and woman “carry within themselves a desire for eternity and happiness that God himself has planted in their hearts and that they are called to fulfil through a specific vocation.”
“Our being in the world is not a mere fruit of chance, but we are part of a design of love and are invited to go out of ourselves and realize it, for ourselves and for others,” the Pope said.
“We are called to happiness, to the fullness of life, to something great to which God has destined us.”
We all have a mission in Church and society
Recalling Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman’s “Meditations and Prayers” Pope Francis further remarked that not only we have all been entrusted with a mission, but ”each and every one of us is a mission.”
The Pope therefore welcomed the symposium and the studies conducted on this topic because, he said, “they spread awareness of the vocation to which every human being is called by God”, and are also useful to reflect on today’s challenges, on the ongoing anthropological crisis, and on the need to promote human and Christian vocations.
Promoting a more effective “circularity” of vocations
He also emphasized the importance of promoting “a more effective circularity” of the different types of vocations in the Church, including lay vocations, ordained ministry and consecrated life, so they “can contribute to generating hope in a world overwhelmed by death.”
“Generating this hope, placing oneself at the service of the Kingdom of God to build an open and fraternal world is a mission entrusted to every woman and man of our time,” he said.
The courage to seek God’s will
Closing his address, Pope Francis encouraged the participants in the Symposium not to shy away from risks in seeking God’s will in their work, reminding them a living faith is not an artifact in a museum:”The Holy Spirit asks us fidelity, but fidelity moves, and often leads us to take risks”, he said.
“Move forward with the courage to discern and risk seeking God's will.”
The real gender ideology is thinking you can boil the entire human experience down to two aesthetics, you’re only allowed to have one, and it’s chosen for you at birth.
I can’t believe the head of the catholic church would do this
The world is literally boiling.
Sorry but
Trans people existing“gender ideology” is a more pressing matter then the simple extinction of all life on earth.
Hexbear consistently being surprised that
A: The pope is Catholic
And
B: The Catholic Church fucking sucks
And then going right back to assuming that the Catholic church is woke and based and diverse and good after a day is probably one of the things that alienates me most from the community.
Sure the Catholic Church has been on the wrong side of 99% of every single issue since the great schism, ut have you considered that 0.01% of priests sometimes consider liberation theology.
And then immediately get outed the by pope to the local authorities to get merc’d
But if you say catholic bad you are “le reddit atheism”
See, I was gonna go to a therapist for 150+ sessions to work through my religious trauma from my very Catholic upbringing. But luckily I realized I was just being an edgy atheist about it. Saved me so much time!
men will literally wear this instead of going to therapy
I feel like the internet at large has forgot why le reddith atheism existed in the first place
That the Catholic Church is somehow a uniquely progressive brand of Christianity is certainly one of the most brainwormed takes I’ve seen on this site. Rarely have I ever rolled my eyes so hard when reading the stuff here.
“Liberation theology” is being constantly pushed as example. I would say, it’s a good example… of how the most progressive movement inside catholicism is still conservative, class collaborationist ideology which furthermore did not achieved anything notable and is only mildly progressive compared to the typical Latin American compradors, fash and juntas.
I wonder how many of those who push it have read, like, any theological documents regarding it. Can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this no-investigation behavior.
Also, why should we try to fix religion when we have materialism right here?
deleted by creator
I guess that’s irrelevant to bring up though
It is. Instead of countering the materialist argument you brought up an irrelevant trope about how science can’t explain everything and shifted from religion to a vague “spirituality”.
fuck Christians
Ok.
Must have hallucinated my religious trauma. Kindly fuck off with this contrarian shit
deleted by creator
It is definitely up there. But I saw someone claiming that the catholic church was the victim of genocide at the hands of the socialists in Spain in the 1930s on here and my brain has never recovered.
iirc their argument was that it technically met the definition, then cited the definition to demonstrate how. I remember them specifically saying they weren’t making a moral judgement on whether or not the socialist were right to target the catholic church. Just saying their actions met the definition that we have. shrug The back and forth about that one felt pretty low stakes and silly to me because it just seemed like semantics.
It’s not semantics to invent a genocide for socialists to have committed actually. Also I cannot stress how much calling a movement genocidal is a moral judgement. Like come on. If you call anticlericalism at a time where the clerics are making kill lists for the fascists “genocide” you’re making a moral argument, and it’s an unhinged one.
Even if that were true, the fuckers would have had it coming for what they did to the Cathars.
Reciprocal genocide is hardly a morally valid act, especially given that the socialists of Spain are not meaningfully the inheritors of the victimization of the Cathars by the French. I also feel like you could name more relevant and newer acts if you did want to that happened since the Albigensian crusade in 1229. The relevant thing is that there was no genocide of Catholics in the 1930s in Spain. Like it’s not a thing.
deleted by creator
I know that there was no genocide of catholics in Spain. Nor would I support the killing of innocents who happened to be catholic.
the catholic church was the victim of genocide
I was saying that the catholic church specifically would deserve it.
Also I personally identify quite strongly with a lot of Cathar ideology so it’s relevant to me. And I like to bring it up when I can, as most people and especially catholics don’t know about it. The catholic church butchered over two million people for the “crime” of having a better religion and not being oppressive freaks.
Religious apologia in some parts of the left constantly makes people unable to see the true, 99% consistency of catholicism being reactionary.
A lot of the religious apologia I’ve encountered in left-ish communities, in person and online, come from non-religious people and stem from contrarianism
There is always some of “as an atheist” takes which are about as much worth as “as a black man” ones.
Catholicism is the low hanging fruit. I’m strongly in favour of letting Muslims alone because they’re constantly under attack where I live but ffs defending the Vatican is cringe
Antiimperialist islam should get some pass because the contradition is greater, but this still only works as far as contradictions and tactics go. We all seen what is happening where they are not antiimperialist.
religions are internally diverse, change over time, and are an active battleground of ideology. People will yell “death to the church” when it does a bad, and “maybe the church is good actually” when it does something good. Is it cringe? Yeah. Does it surprise me? No. Look at Christianity itself. It emerged out of Judaism. It’s a very different religion from Judaism, yet it emerged out of it. Christianity doesn’t require…
content warning
the circumcision “covenant” or burnt animal sacrifice “sin and guilt offerings”
and even modern Judaism no longer requires one of those things… So religions can change over time. The medieval catholic church accepted indulgences and burnt people at the stake for heresy. It is much more likely that they will continue down the road of changing instead of disappearing entirely from society.
(I’m not defending reformism or the catholic church btw, which is an awful institution I’m just observing why people behave the way you pointed out, and speculating that these institutions aren’t going to disappear any time soon)
I wish people had reminded American protestants that they don’t have to practice circumcision. Could have saved me some trouble!
🫂
deleted by creator
Yes but the man responsible for the practice (Dr. Kellogg) was a right wing religious extremist who promoted it as a way to keep guys from masturbating
At least his other experiment never caught on
CW body horror
He also tried sewing the foreskin in place so it couldn’t move or retract
religions are internally diverse
The catholic church isn’t, by design. I’m not being funny here, if you think the pope is wrong the punishment is excommunication - they kick you straight the fuck out.
Sure, doesn’t happen much, most people aren’t exactly of note enough for this to happen, but there’s no “ah well it’s complicated with the catholic church”. I mean feel free to believe in any other number of christian denominations, there’s plenty to choose, but you can’t be catholic and not be fully into what the pope says, according to the catholic church.
The catholic church isn’t
you can’t be catholic and not be fully into what the pope says, according to the catholic church.
Well that’s how protestantism started, which circles back to my point about religions being internally diverse. Hence they’re prone to schisms when their institutions are too inflexible.
if you think the pope is wrong the punishment is excommunication - they kick you straight the fuck out.
This is exactly the kind of rigidity which leads to diversity because people will branch off and form their own churches as a result. These aren’t different religions. They’re different branches of the same religion. Internal diversity.
Also, my inlaws are all catholics. half of them are chuds who hate the “woke pope” for being too “liberal commie” and the other half are a bunch of party animals who’ve never touched a bible outside of church. the rigidity in the church hierarchy among the clergy does not really apply to the churchgoers themselves, who can be quite diverse in their personal interpretations and practices of their own religions.
deleted by creator
I am once again pointing out that the church needs to get cleaned out and reformed good and hard and that Francis is not a leftist but a centrist in current church politics.
Death to the Catholic Church, unironically. This is just one more peanut in the massive turd of horrors that the Catholic Church has unleashed on humanity throughout its dark history.
I give them critical support because if they die the Evangelicals and more specifically, Southern Baptists, fill their spot.
Not if we throw them all in a giant pit first
Why waste a perfectly good giant pit when we have guillotines?
idk at least those fuckers aren’t running an international pedophile ring
Lets be real they definitely are too
while i’m sure the southern baptists are covering for their own pedos, i reckon the catholic church is a bit more international
Thanks for posting this before I could. Massive sexual abuse and pedo “scandal” in the SBC. Of course, some baptists find a way to blame it on gay and trans people because the church is too liberal now, even though the SBC explicitly opposes gay and trans rights.
Even though the biggest offender was the dude who did the fundamentalist take over and was friend with like Nixon and shit! Every projection an admission
Will this make libs stop making excuses for him? (No)
Like “woke,” the term used by fascists of “gender ideology” is so fucking nebulous. What does it mean? Who are the main leaders in this “ideology”? What are it’s principles? What are the ideolgical roots? The philosophy behind it?
It’s another buzzword that doesn’t mean anything real that is used to rile up the hogs into a
rage over anything that makes them upset.It’s the same as “tip culture” being the scapegoat for service workers needing tips. It’s not a culture, it’s capitalism and specifically greedy ass restaurant owners who are allergic to paying a living wage.
Depending on the area and job, a lot of tipped workers are also against a minimum wage because they make more per hour with tips. It’s very annoying when they start siding with management lol
It’s brilliantly evil in how it sets working class people against each other. In most jobs you’re making the same as the people around you doing the same thing, but tips introduce a dynamic where you feel like you’re being paid more because you’re better at your job when it’s mostly just based on your appearance.
🔥✝️☦️🔥
that’s right, more dangerous than zionism, capitalism, and the resurgence of fascist parties
All of which the Vatican supports
Homelessness plague, systemic misandry having men killed en masse through imperialist wars, capitalism ruining everyone’s health and lives, but no, gender is the true danger. I have been so blind. Thank you, Frank, for opening my eyes.
the “good pope” is still a fucking pope.
can’t believe people outside the church fall for the posturing
He’s only “good” because his job is to make his religion more palletable to God’s dwindling fanbase.
not religious but secularization theory is not proven. In some parts of the world there is growing secularization, but in other parts of the world there is growing religiosity. I am still very skeptical of the idea that modernity and economic development is enough to turn everyone Atheist/Agnostic. There are still very powerful religious institutions which are capable of leveraging modern communications technology to indoctrinate people further. Marx pointed this out in the 1800s:
I mostly see the decline in religiosity in the West as another sign of atomization. This makes a lot more sense once you no longer incorrectly see religion as a set of beliefs and correctly see religion as a set of practices. “People no longer believe in a heaven and a god because their material lives are better” misses the essence of religion.
This makes a lot more sense once you no longer incorrectly see religion as a set of beliefs and correctly see religion as a set of practices
I see religion as a set of belief and practices. There was certainly an over-emphasis on the belief side of things and an under-emphasis on the practice side of things when the modern academic field of secular religious studies first began in the 1800s, but I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely incorrect to consider beliefs and entirely correct to consider practices. There’s no academic consensus on what even constitutes a religion, but I think most of the time both beliefs and practices play into it.
I emphasize practice because Westerners almost exclusively view religion through the prism of belief (I believe in Christianity vs I practice Christianity), but yes, religious practices and beliefs exist in a dialectical relationship.
Loser who supports a pedophilic institution is a transphobic piece of shit. What a shocking turn of events.
Not just supports, leads.
I sure do love how this douchebag is revered across the entirety of Latin America. It’s so awesome that a decrepit white man from halfway across the globe still governs the politics of his colonies centuries later. Dime que mas te dijo Dios, papa! Somos muy tontos nosotros para entender.
Technically he was born in Buenos Aires… that probably makes it worse though
Argentinians can be white wym? I’m pretty sure he’s the son of Italian immigrants
he’s the son of Italian immigrants
Marinara always runs true.
ayyyy im transubstantiating ovah 'ere
Literally death to christianity and all its corresponding sects.
What happened? The Trumpists were claiming he was the WOKE POPE.
Maybe the religious order that sought to conquer and convert the world, that genocided indigenous people and refuses to apologize, and presently diddles kids and pals around with the rich and powerful of the world aren’t actually… woke?
Introducing his address the Pope said he still has a cold and asked his assistant Monsignor Filippo Ciampanelli to read it out for him, "so I don’t get so fatigued.”
I hope it’s Covid.
