During a General Audience shortly before he left for Cuba, Pope Francis spoke about woman’s critical role in salvation history, saying she has a special God-given role in protecting each generation against evil.

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) is reporting on the comments, which were made “off-the-cuff” during his September 16 General Audience when he was reflecting on Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis.

“The created world was entrusted to man and to woman: what takes place between them marks everything,” the pope said. “Their rejection of God’s blessing fatally leads them to a delirium of omnipotence that ruins everything. That is what we call ‘original sin’. And we all bear the inheritance of this disease from birth.”

But we are not cursed or abandoned by our God.

“The ancient account of God’s first love for man and woman already had fire written into its pages in this regard! ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed’ (Gen 3:15a). These are the words God directs to the serpent deceiver, the serpent charmer! Through these words God marks woman with a protective barrier against evil, to which she can turn — if she wants — in every generation. It means that woman carries within her a secret and a special blessing, to defend His creation from the evil one! Like the Woman in the book of Revelations, who hastens to hide the child from the Dragon. And God shields her (cf. Rev 12:6).

“Think what depth is opened here!” he continues.

“There exist many stereotypes, some rather offensive, about the woman temptress who inspires evil. On the contrary, there is room for a theology of woman worthy of this blessing of God for her and for every generation!”

He goes on to remind that “the merciful protection of God for man and woman, in every case, never fails either of them. Let us not forget this!”

The symbolic language of the Bible informs us that before banishing them from the Garden of Eden, God provided garments for Adam and Eve.

“This act of tenderness means that in the painful consequences of our sin, God does not want us to be left naked and abandoned to our fate as sinners. . . .God loves us as we are and desires to lead us forward in this plan, and woman is the stronger one who carries this plan forward.”

The promise God made to Adam and Eve at the start of history extends to all humankind until the end of time, he said.

In addition, good families also serve as a protection against evil when men and women are in a “conjugal-familial” alliance, he said.

“(The family) saves us from many, many attacks, destruction, colonizations – such as (the colonization) of money,” or those “ideologies which greatly threaten the world.”

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