Pope Francis spoke to a group of Polish Bishops recently and delivered a stinging condemnation of the manner in which children are being taught that they can choose their gender identity.
The Holy Father repeated his message regarding transgender indoctrination: “Today, children are taught this at school: that everyone can choose their own sex. But, God created man and woman; God created the world like this and we are doing the exact opposite.”
Teaching children that they can pick their gender, Francis said, is “terrible.” He likewise warned that the effort, which Pope Benedict XVI had earlier defined as “ideological colonization” is being promoted and supported by vast sums of money by those with political influence.
Referring to ideological colonization as sinful, Pope Francis said the effort has received financial backing by “very influential countries”. The Pope said that one example – “I’ll say it clearly with its first and last name – is gender.”
Lately, the Church has confronted such ideological colonization efforts in many ways.
In 2014, during the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, African Bishops indicated how often such ideologies are condition for aid from other countries. In order to get access to funds from Western nations, Catholic aid organizations increasingly come under pressure to cooperate with the distribution of contraceptives and the promotion of abortion.
Bishop Ignatius Kaigama of Nigeria demanded an end of such paternalistic conditions on aid, proclaiming to the world that Nigeria and other African nations could make such decisions for themselves. Deriding Western interference as paternalistic and worse, the Bishop declared that African nations such as his had “grown up” long ago and could make their own decisions on issues regarding contraception and Western demands for “reproductive rights” — abortion. Demanding contraceptive and abortion access as a condition of aid puts organizations in the tough position of having to potentially deny life-saving aid to people or putting their own souls at risk.
Transgenderism is but another value being pushed through the same “colonization” process — the use of wealth to force organizations into pushing their own agenda.
Francis certainly has made clear that he opposes the relativism that is at the heart of transgenderism and the gender-identity movement.
Pope Benedict XVI spoke of an “ecology of man”, based on the fact that “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will”. It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings. The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology.
Pope Francis’ statements to the Polish Bishops clearly emphasizes his continuity with the vision of his predecessor.
It is reassuring to witness the Holy Father’s clear condemnation of transgenderism for evil and deception that it is.
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