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.
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.
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…
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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!
🫂
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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
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.
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.
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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.