VATICAN (CNS) “Today the worst danger is gender ideology, which erases differences,” he said, underlining that he has asked for studies to be done “about this ugly ideology of our time, which erases differences and makes everything equal,” Pope Francis said on March 1 as he opened an international congress in the Vatican Synod Hall titled, Man-Woman: Image of God. For an Anthropology of Vocations.
“To erase difference is to erase humanity. Man and woman, on the other hand, stand in fruitful ‘tension’” with each other, the pope said,
The March 1 to 2 congress was sponsored by the Centre for Research and Anthropology of Vocations, which was founded in 2020 by Marc Cardinal Ouellet, the retired prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, to promote and support research in the social sciences on vocations in society.
The pope greeted the attendees but had an aide, Monsignor Filippo Ciampanelli, an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State, read his prepared text because “I still have a cold and I get worn out from reading” out loud after a while.
However, he continued speaking off-the-cuff, saying, “I would like to emphasise one thing: It is very important that we have this meeting, this meeting between men and women, because today the worst danger is gender ideology, which erases differences.”
To erase difference is to erase humanity. Man and woman, on the other hand, stand in fruitful ‘tension’
Pope Francis
As he often has done in the past, the pope referenced the dystopian science fiction novel, Lord of the World, written in 1907 by Monsignor Robert H. Benson, a former Anglican vicar, encouraging his audience to read it. He reiterated that he considers the novel to be “prophetic because it shows this trend of erasing all differences.”
In his prepared remarks, the pope wrote that a basic truth needs to be rediscovered “in all its beauty: the life of the human being is vocation.”
Every person needs to discover and express himself or herself “as called, as a calling, as a person who finds fulfillment in listening and responding, sharing his or her being and gifts with others for the common good,” he wrote.
People today sometimes “forget or obscure this reality, with the risk of reducing the human being to his or her material needs or basic needs alone, as if he or she were an object without a conscience or will, simply pulled along by life like a gear in a machine,” he wrote.
Instead, men and women are created by God and are the image of the Creator; that is, they carry within themselves a desire for eternity and happiness that God himself has sown in their hearts and which they are called to realise through a specific vocation
Pope Francis
“Instead, men and women are created by God and are the image of the Creator; that is, they carry within themselves a desire for eternity and happiness that God himself has sown in their hearts and which they are called to realise through a specific vocation,” he wrote. “We are called to happiness, to the fullness of life, to something great for which God has destined us.”
The pope said, “We are part of a plan of love, and we are invited to go outside of ourselves and realise it, for ourselves and for others.”
After the the prepared remarks, Pope Francis told participants to “not be afraid during these rich moments in the life of the Church,” adding, “The Holy Spirit asks us for one important thing: fidelity. But fidelity is being on a journey, and fidelity often leads us to take risks.”
He urged them to keep pressing ahead “with the courage to discern and risk seeking God’s will” and “without losing your sense of humour!”
