Synod Confronts ‘Gender Ideology,’ Threat to Education
An adiutor, or expert, at the Synod on the Family
in Rome says that the growing threat to families from the spread of
gender ideology, particularly the danger it poses to all levels of
education, has been discussed at length during the Synod.
“[Gender ideology] has enormous implications for Catholic education at every level – including college,” said Dr. John Grabowski in an interview with The Cardinal Newman Society. Grabowski is a professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and an adiutor assisting the Special Secretary and the Relator at the Synod. “The concern about ‘gender ideology’ has been discussed in the Synod, both in the general assembly and in small groups.”
“College students are growing up in a culture that tells them that they are self-creating subjects whose personal reality is constituted by their own perception of their bodies and attractions,” Grabowski noted.
“[Gender ideology] has enormous implications for Catholic education at every level – including college,” said Dr. John Grabowski in an interview with The Cardinal Newman Society. Grabowski is a professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and an adiutor assisting the Special Secretary and the Relator at the Synod. “The concern about ‘gender ideology’ has been discussed in the Synod, both in the general assembly and in small groups.”
“College students are growing up in a culture that tells them that they are self-creating subjects whose personal reality is constituted by their own perception of their bodies and attractions,” Grabowski noted.
An adiutor,
or expert, at the Synod on the Family in Rome says that the growing
threat to families from the spread of gender ideology, particularly the
danger it poses to all levels of education, has been discussed at length
during the Synod. “[Gender ideology] has enormous implications for Catholic education at every level – including college,” said Dr. John Grabowski in an interview with The Cardinal Newman Society. Grabowski is a professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and an adiutor assisting the Special Secretary and the Relator at the Synod. “The concern about ‘gender ideology’ has been discussed in the Synod, both in the general assembly and in small groups.”
“College students are growing up in a culture that tells them that they are self-creating subjects whose personal reality is constituted by their own perception of their bodies and attractions,” Grabowski noted. “We need to provide them with an alternative anthropology informed by the equal dignity and irreducible personal difference of men and women created in the image of God.”
“There needs to be more attention given to the reality and import of sexual difference within the understanding of the human person,” he said.
Last week, Catholic News Agency reported that the majority of the 13 small groups discussing the Synod’s working document “are in agreement that gender ideology poses a serious challenge for families in the modern world.”
“In Italy, bishops have been constantly fighting over the past year against attempts to introduce textbooks into the nation’s schools that present gender theory as a fact,” according to Catholic News Agency. One Italian small group reportedly agreed that the Synod text should “more widely refer to the risks of gender ideology, as well [as] to the negative influence it has on scholastic programs of many countries.”
Another Italian small group reportedly affirmed that the “ideological character of gender ideology” must be emphasized “in order to lend families a hand so that they can take back their original right to educate children in a responsible dialogue with other educative agencies.”
Grabowski cited Pope Benedict XVI’s final Christmas address to the Roman Curia as “one of the most profound analyses of the [gender ideology] issue.”
The address “describes the separation of gender from sex by Simone de Beauvoir and second wave existentialist feminism,” Grabowski explained. “[F]or de Beauvoir and others, gender was a cultural construct. Now [society] regards it as self-chosen and self-created.”
“Obviously, we need to affirm the dignity and treat with respect and understanding people who are confused about their embodiment, what used to be called ‘gender identity disorder,’ especially when these are children,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we should create confusion or hardship for others.”
Grabowski added that along with resisting gender ideology, Catholic education must work to impart the true meaning of marriage to students.
“In Catholic colleges and schools at other levels, we need a clearer and deeper understanding of the reality of marriage as a sacrament, especially the power of grace within it,” he said. “We need to make clear that the indissolubility of marriage is not just a legal requirement of Church law, but rooted in Jesus’ own teaching on the nature of marriage and rooted in the very concept of marriage as a sacrament.”
