Pope Francis on Gender Theory: “No to Manipulation!”

The Academy’s theme for the assembly was “Accompanying Life: New responsibilities in the technological era.” The Holy Father sought, as he stood and spoke in the Synod Hall, to respond “to the formidable questions” posed by the development and “power of biotechnologies.”

A Reckless Alliance between Economics and Technology

Francis began by pointing an accusing finger at what he calls “a culture obsessively focused on the sovereignty of man.” For the Pope, reports the press agency I.Media, such a culture results in serious consequences on the bonds of life, due to the “reckless…alliance between economics and technology, which treats life like a resource to be exploited or discarded for power or profit.”

Without quoting it by name, the successor of Peter then attacked the Gender theory, labeling it “the recently-advanced hypothesis of reopening the way for the dignity of the person by radically neutralizing sexual difference and, therefore, the understanding between man and woman.”

The Pope went on to speak of “accompaniment and care for life throughout its entire individual and social lifespan.” We need, he declared, to rediscover “the sensibility for the various ages of life,” something that cannot be done in today’s lifestyle in which “cities that are increasingly hostile to children” and communities “are ever less hospitable to the elderly, with walls with neither doors nor windows.”

What Humanae Vitae Says

What Francis did not mention in his speech – and it would have given his words even greater weight – is what Paul VI wrote in the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, when he insisted on the fact that “every question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology. It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered: both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects.”

Indeed, it is because man and woman were made to adore, love, and serve God and then enjoy eternal happiness with Him in heaven that human life must be jealously protected from the first instant of its conception until the moment of death.

Despite this important omission, Tugdual Derville, Alliance Vita’s general delegate and a member of the Academy for Life, pointed out after the papal address Francis’ “pastoral coherency”, in which “everything is connected, the embryo but also the elderly”. According to him, this pastoral perspective is necessary in order to promote the doctrine in debates like the one on medically assisted reproduction.

In France, this debate is being reopened, as President Emmanuel Macron promised in his electoral campaign. Marlène Schiappa, Secretary of State in charge of gender equality, announced on September 12 on Monte-Carlo Radio that making assisted reproduction available to all women – even single or in a relationship with another woman – will be inscribed in the new Bioethics law in 2018.