On the gender issue

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

SOMEONE asked me what my views are regarding the gender issue. I must admit that I have been quiet about this matter since I know it is a very delicate issue that can easily provoke unnecessary controversy and noise.

As priest, I get to talk to all kinds of people—straight, gay, etc.—and I try my best to listen to each one, exerting effort to find where they are and where they are coming from. Only then would I try to clarify things. And even if there are disagreements, I try my best to maintain friendship and warm relations. There are times when certain things simply have to be tolerated for a while, at least, without condoning them.

I believe that differences, conflicts, error and even sin should not be a reason to lose or even simply weaken friendship and love for one another. If at all, they should occasion greater love.

But given the complexity of the issue, what I would suggest is for us to study well a Vatican document from the Congregation for Catholic Education entitled, “‘Male and female he created them’: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education.” This was issued on February 2, 2019.

That document outlines well the Christian attitude and teaching about the gender issue. What I would rather do here is to quote some parts of that document which I consider would give us a good picture of the Church’s position regarding this issue.

In its Introduction, we are given a general view of how the issue stands today. “It is becoming increasingly clear that we are now facing with what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality,” it says. “In many places, curricula are being planned and implemented which ‘allegedly convey a neutral conception of the person and of life, yet in fact reflect an anthropology opposed to faith and to right reason.’”

It continues by saying that “the disorientation regarding anthropology which is a widespread feature of our cultural landscape has undoubtedly helped to destabilize the family as an institution, bringing with it a tendency to cancel out the differences between men and women, presenting them instead as merely the product of historical and cultural conditioning.”

The document zeroes in on an ideology that is generally known as the ‘gender theory,’ which “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”

As a consequence, the document says that “this ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female. Thus, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time.”

But as the document continues, “the Christian vision of anthropology sees sexuality as a fundamental component of one’s personhood. It is one of its modes of being, of manifesting itself, communicating with others, and of feeling, expressing and living human love.

“Therefore, our sexuality plays an integral part in the development of our personality and in the process of its education: ‘In fact, it is from [their] sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and insertion into society.’

“As each person grows, ‘such diversity, linked to the complementarity of the two sexes, allows a thorough response to the design of God according to the vocation to which each one is called”. In the light of this, ‘affective-sex education must consider the totality of the person and insist therefore on the integration of the biological, psycho-affective, social and spiritual elements’.”

And the document continues with more ideas, suggestions and strategies. We should spend time studying them closely.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com