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.”
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?
There’s a difference between abolishing currently existing forms of religion and saying that no human spiritual belief should ever form again. I’m not sure if the second is even healthy, especially with how many unexplainable things exist. I guess that’s irrelevant to bring up though, fuck Christians
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”.
Ok.
Must have hallucinated my religious trauma. Kindly fuck off with this contrarian shit
I’m kind of confused here, I’m concerned maybe I was read as sarcastic? I could see that, sorry I wrote it in kind of a catty tone I didn’t intend to convey.
I meant it genuinely. The trope I was giving isn’t a defense of Christianity at all, moreso vague obscure and/or currently nonexistent forms of spirituality that haven’t been constructed yet. I’m not trying to invalidate your trauma and I’m sorry I was.
If you have religious trauma with some other form of religion, possibly some kind of more obscure religion that still hurt you a lot, than not only am I willing to admit that obscure religions can be bad, but that non-materialist views of reality ARE dangerous in general and that I don’t know what kind of spirituality I’m talking about would even look like
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.
I know that there was no genocide of catholics in Spain. Nor would I support the killing of innocents who happened to be catholic.
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!
🫂
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 retractThe 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.
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.
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.
I think human beings can believe in supernatural and possibly even false things without being harmful, but they have to be aligned with ultimately materialist values (yes, I know this seems contradictory, it makes more sense in my head). This necessitates the destruction of the Catholic Church and in fact most Christian churches that exist, and their replacement with new religion (Christianity or otherwise) that draws from Marxist texts and good life teachings to create a form of spiritually no longer disconnected from our material circumstances. Can this be done? God I hope so.
Other religions are often cringe but it’s not my place as a white person to judge those tbh
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.