Gender Ideology - Blessings for the Unblessable

Male and Female He Created Them - Genesis 1:27

Changing sex roles in Europe and North America and a broader sense of sexual orientation and sexual expression are challenging traditional morals. Feminist, straight, gay, queer, transgender, gender fluid, cis males, transwomen, pan sexual, and sex positive are relatively new terms and categories that redefine our notions of ourselves and others. However, the more traditional Judeo-Christian view is of men and women, the male, and the female as immutably separate. This is seen as a reality ordained by natural law and divine teaching. Religious and political leaders from the traditional view call the emerging social definitions gender ideology or gender theory.

Mary Ann Case of the University of Chicago Law School traces the origins of the concept and the creation of the term gender ideology in the teaching of the Pope Francis and Pope Benedict in her 2019 article, “Trans Formations in the Vatican’s War on Gender Ideology.”

Ironically from the perspective of those who hoped for change, although Benedict XVI had been warning of the risks from “gender ideology” throughout his papacy, it was not until Francis, too, spoke of the threat posed by what he called “gender theory” in apocalyptic terms, comparing it to nuclear war, Nazism, and one of the “Herods that destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation” (Fullam 2015) that certain parts of the world took notice.

Mary Ann Case –  2019 Chicago Unbound, University of Chicago School of Law

The Catholic Church has an outsized moral influence around the world particularly in the Global South. In 2021 The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope Francis issued a statement forbidding the blessing of same sex couples. According to the document God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

Three years later, on December 18, 2023, Pope Francis took an amazing turn and issued Fiducia Supplicans: on the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings.  Using a pastoral focus the Pope talks about blessings more broadly but also the blessing of people in “irregular unions” such as divorced and remarried Catholics and gay couples.  

On the same day Jesuit Fr. James Martin wrote an editorial in America Magazine

Today the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Víctor Fernández, issued a declaration that will long be remembered by L.G.B.T.Q. people. Entitled “Fiducia Supplicans” (from the first two words in Latin, meaning, “Supplicating trust”), the declaration opens the door, for the first time, for the official blessings of same-sex couples by ministers of the church, something that has long been desired by L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics and their families and friends.

The declaration also includes a larger meditation on blessings in the Catholic tradition and cautions that the blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular” unions should be done in a way that does not confuse these blessings with sacramental marriage or suggest a liturgical rite. But even with those provisions, this is a major step forward for L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics.

In a January 11, 2024 opinion piece in the National Catholic Reporter, Franciscan Fr. Daniel P. Horan a theologian at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana points out the importance of the Pope’s recognition of LGBTQ+ people.

Though the gesture may be small, the publication of Fiducia Supplicans signals an important departure from the status quo of erasure and dehumanization. Perhaps this declaration will be enough of a recognition, of seeing and beholding of LGBTQ+ persons that over time the broader faith community (of which LGBTQ+ Catholics are equally a part) can open itself up to learn more about and from them.

Excerpted from Don't overlook the significance of the LGBTQ+ community being seen, January 11, 2024, National Catholic Reporter.

This recognition of LGBTQ+ persons has had a real impact in the pews. A young woman approached her pastor after Mass with tears in her eyes. “does this mean that I am not a bad person? Does this mean that God loves me?

However, the recognition of LGBTQ+ persons has not gone over well in Africa. Cardinal Sara of Guinea and several African bishops’ conferences have rejected blessing same sex couples. To be clear Pope Francis did not sanction the blessing of these unions.

“The freedom we must offer to people living in homosexual unions lies in the truth of the word of God,” he continued. “How could we dare to make them believe that it would be good and desired by God for them to remain in the prison of their sin?” 

Excerpted from the National Catholic Register, Advent 2023

The difficulty of accepting same sex relationships springs from a deeper vision of what is appropriate and moral for men and women. For traditionalists, the equality of women and feminism more broadly are seen as destructive of the family and the social order. Men and women have their proper roles. However, human societies have taken different forms. In many areas of the world, especially in Africa, there are indigenous societies that are matriarchal and matrilineal, in which the man lives in his mother’s home and raises his sister’s children. Other indigenous societies hold more fluid notions of sexual identity and roles. Clearly, these structures have not been accepted by Christianity or Islam. Buddhism and Hinduism have a little more flexibility but are also patriarchal religions.

In the United States and western Europe, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights arose out of broader civil rights struggles of the Black community, women’s suffrage, and the persecution of homosexuals. Contemporary psychology has also given voice to lived experiences which are not permitted in most societies. Sexual orientation has been seen as a spectrum since the Kinsey Reports – Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1943) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). More recent research has shown that sexual orientation, whether gay or straight, may be manifested in various ways. These First World concepts have not been completely accepted in the First World. The rejection of gender ideology is now a prominent theme in conservative politics. School boards are challenging LGBTQ+ content and teaching in public schools. Trans sexuality is also a concern, since opponents feel that the schools are normalizing sexual behaviors and identities that are objectionable, if not evil.

Among moderates and liberals, tolerance and even acceptance of gays and lesbians and gay marriage has grown over the last 20 years. It has come about as an analog of the conventional heterosexual sense of monogamous marriage. However, heterosexual, non-exclusive open marriages or casual sex with strangers are still not acceptable. Trans-sexuality and identity, even among progressives, is not widely understood. Gender fluidity is still looked on askance.

Sociologist Tony Silva in his 2018 doctoral dissertation has shown that there are various types of heterosexual culture.  Rural men who identify as straight have sex with other men in ways that reinforces their sense of masculine identity and adherence to straight culture. For example, these men are generally married with children or in relationships with women, which they prioritize. They do not identify or meet the criteria for being gay or bisexual. Silva’s dissertation is worth reading. It is very clear and easy to read and provides clear definitions and distinctions about sexual identity, sexual expression, and the range of categories involved.

Clearly, there are huge social and cultural forces that will conserve traditional sex roles. However, interpersonal compassion is the first step to a moral reflection on emerging social structures and roles that allow for more diversity. How the Catholic faith can reconcile the new opening that Pope Francis has created with its traditional teaching remains to be seen. The seed has been planted.

Thanks again for your support.

Randy