The Catholic Church, led by Pope Francis, just made a move that is going to earn the ire of the political left.
Breitbart reports that the Catholic church has now formally declared that a person’s “gender identity” is not something that can be chosen, but rather is something that comes from God and is in accordance with one’s biological sex.
The current state of affairs
The church put forth its position on gender identity in the newly published Directory for Catechesis, a document meant for the instruction of Christians. Gender identity is a new social issue and thus was not addressed in previous editions.
In recent years we have seen a sharp change with modern gender theory proponents arguing that individuals have some sort of choice about their gender – that regardless of one’s biological sex, one can choose to identify with and live in accordance with the male or female gender. Or, as the church puts it, a person “denies his nature and decides that he creates it himself.”
“Gender identity, according to this position, is no longer an original fact that the person must embrace and fill with meaning, but a social construction that is decided independently, totally detached from biological sex,” the new Directory for Catechesis reads.
Of course, this stands in stark contrast with . . .
The traditional understanding
In denying modern gender theory, the church has now affirmed its belief in traditional views on the subject.
According to the Catechesis, it all begins with Genesis’s creation story in which “man was created by God as male and female.” To accept modern gender theory, thus, is to deny this fundamental truth.
In the Catechesis, however, the church does acknowledge that there is a “complexity of personal situations that are lived sometimes in a conflictive way.” The church also acknowledges that gender dysphoria is a real psychological problem that needs to be appropriately addressed.
However, the church writes that “from a perspective of faith, sexuality is not only a physical fact, but a personal reality, a value entrusted to the responsibility of the person. In this way, sexual identity and existential experience must be a response to God’s original call.”
It makes sense
Since taking over the papacy, Pope Francis has not always made decisions that have sat well with the faithful. He has been rock solid in his approach to this issue, however.
We know that the criticism will now follow. The only question is how harsh it will be.
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