In keeping with Pope Francis’ frequent warnings about the dangers of “gender theory,” a recent conference in Rome resulted in strong statements against the idea that male/female identities can be determined by personal desire rather than by nature.

Reporting for Crux.com, veteran Vatican analyst John Allen says a paper prepared by Vincenzo Turchi, a professor of canon law and ecclesiastical law at the University of Salento was presented at a March 12-13 conference on “The Right to Education and Teaching” at Rome’s Santa Croce University. The paper was presented on Turchi’s behalf during a panel chaired by German Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the closest aide to Pope emeritus Benedict XVI and the Prefect of the Papal Household for Francis.

Turchi warned that gender theory, which involves the increasingly popular belief that sexual differences are changeable and can be based on “individual self-determination,” is being introduced in schools in various ways, such as through sexual education programs.

Gender theory is often presented in the same way as same-sex relations were presented – as a way of preventing discrimination and bullying. However, a closer review of the materials shows that it actually goes much further.

“It’s not limited to presenting principles of non-discrimination, but it anticipates marriage for people of the same sex, or registration for same-sex couples, as well as adoption rights for them and so on,” Turchi wrote.

He cites a French case involving a teaching program called ABCD of Equality. The program was designed to help children overcome negative gender stereotypes, but critics say it went much further an blurred the distinctions between male and female.

“In acting out fairy tales, for instance, boys were encouraged to play the part of Little Red Riding Hood, and girls the part of the wolf,” Allen reports. “In looking at the Renoir painting Madame Charpentier et ses enfants, the government suggested teachers point out that little boys, as well as little girls, used to wear dresses, or that King Louis XIV wore high heels and ribbons.”

Angry parents protested and boycotted the schools selected to pilot the new program, arguing that the state was venturing into territory that belonged to parents.

Turchi also cited developments in Sweden where schools adopted “gender-neutral” pronouns and sex-education materials in Denmark which now include guest speakers such as a transsexual prostitute.

Gender theory is “being spread without speaking about it openly, inserted into legislation and then into school materials on other subjects,” Turchi said. “Anyone who objects is labeled as racist or discriminatory.”

Allen summarizes the Church’s opposition to gender theory into three bullet points, all of which were contained in Turchi’s talk:

o Eroding the idea that sexual identity and orientation are given in nature, proposing that orientation, and, by extension, sexual behavior, isn’t bound by objective moral norms but rather the result of contingent historical and cultural choices.

o Encouraging the state to promote such a vision of gender in schools, thereby threatening the right of parents to be the primary educators of their children.

o Under the guise of avoiding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, stigmatizing traditional religious and moral views and ending up becoming itself a form of discrimination.

This conference shows that the Church is intensifying its efforts to combat the encroachment of “gender theory” into our laws and schools, an effort which is very much in keeping with the feelings of Pope Francis on this subject.

For example, in an October 2015 general audience, the pope warned about the rise of gender theory, saying that it makes us “risk going backward,” and “drains the world of affection and obscures the heavens of hope.”

In 2016, in an off-the-cuff speech in Georgia, Francis said gender theory is playing a role in the “global war to destroy marriage,” a battle that is being fought “not with weapons, but with ideas.”

Last October, during a session with the Pontifical Academy for Life, he warned that gender theory is “likely to dismantle the source of energy that nourishes the alliance of man and woman and makes it creative and fruitful.”

It is important for Catholics to understand the Church’s position on this subject in order to be effective witnesses to the Truth as we face the same encroachment of gender theory into our laws and schools.

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