Photo: Tiziana Fabi Agence France-Presse Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday
France Media Agency at Vatican City
08:12
- Europe
Pope Francis again castigated gender theory on Friday, seeing it as “the most dreadful danger” which “effaces differences”.
“It is very important that there is this encounter between men and women, because today the most terrible danger is gender ideology, which erases differences,” the pope said during a Vatican audience with participants in an international conference on marriage and consecrated life.
“I asked to carry out studies on this ugly ideology of our time, which erases differences and makes everything the same. To erase difference is to erase humanity,” added the 87-year-old Argentine pope.
“I remember reading a novel from the early 20th century, written by the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury: The Lord of the World. This novel is about the future and is prophetic, because it shows this tendency to erase all differences,” he added.
Jorge Bergoglio has already repeatedly criticized this theory according to which sexual identity is determined by upbringing and environment, and not by genetic differences.
In 2016, he notably denounced the “sneaky indoctrination” of French school textbooks influenced by this theory, provoking an avalanche of criticism in France.
In 2019, the Vatican published a text intended to help teachers in Catholic schools counter gender “ideology”, which “denies the natural difference between a man and a woman”, all by favoring dialogue and openness.