Catholic gender expert: The problem is not the term, but the anthropology that underlies it

Marta Rodríguez Díaz, a Catholic expert on gender ideology, was chosen by the Spanish Episcopal Conference to provide training to the diocesan delegates of Family and Life Pastoral on the challenge that this issue represents for the Catholic Church.

Doctor in Philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University, she is a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum and coordinator of the academic area of ​​the Institute of Women’s Studies.

She is also the academic director of the course at Gender, sex and educationfrom the Francisco de Vitoria University in collaboration with the Regina Apostolorum, and was part of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

In conversation with ACI Prensa, he explains that more than combating gender ideology, the mission of the Catholic Church is to “seek light to shine in the darkness” and offer critical dialogue.

Rodríguez also points out that “if the Church is not credible today in terms of gender, it is not because it does not have much to say, but because there is a lack of trainers who know how to transmit their message with integrity and success.”

How should the Church combat gender ideology?

I don’t know if I love the word “fight”… I believe that the mission of the Church is to be light and to make light shine in the darkness. Being light means fully proposing the truth about the human being, training, and also alerting and pointing out those ideas that contradict the dignity of the person, or do not favor their fullness.

Personally, I would prefer to see that as a Church we are more dedicated to a dialogue capable of seriously challenging the ideologies of our time, rather than making total denunciations that only those who already think like us understand.

According to the data you offer, pastoral workers either vaguely know and understand the Catholic teaching on the issue or they do not know or understand it at all. What steps must be taken to reverse this situation?

Form, form and form. It is necessary to train in Christian anthropology: my experience is that pastoral agents know it insufficiently, and are not capable of proposing it in all its beauty and depth. Furthermore, it is necessary to train in moral theology, so that they know how to discern the pastoral applications that are appropriate in each case, without blurring the truth of the person in any way. It is also necessary to train in a pastoral style that knows how to connect with the postmodern world, and propose the perennial beauty of the Gospel in a language understandable for today’s world.

I believe that if the Church is not credible today in terms of gender, it is not because it does not have much to say, but because there is a lack of trainers who know how to transmit their message with integrity and success.

There is a crisis in the family, in which the roles of men and women are confused. Is this a main cause of young people’s ignorance about the gender issue? What other elements push in this direction?

Definitely, the crisis of femininity and masculinity that we are experiencing has a very strong impact on young people. Without attractive models, it is complex to carry out the process of identification with one’s own sex necessary in adolescence. Furthermore, the crisis of the family itself: many dysfunctional families, with absent fathers and mothers.

Certainly, the media, social networks, movies… that so clearly insist on a single message also influence. In short, I believe that today children are bombarded by ideas that confuse them and they do not have solid references to guide them.

He states that knowing that it has not been done well until now is “liberating.” In what sense?

In the sense that it makes us see what depends on us, and where we can improve our speech to be more credible. Personally, it bothers me a lot when it is stated that the cause of all the confusion among young people is in social networks, the media, laws… because all that is true, but it is also true that it does not seem that it is going to change in the future. coming years.

But yes, at the same time that we recognize the impact of all these external elements, we recognize that as a Church we have not always been up to par; that we have not known how to propose the message with the depth and beauty that our time demanded… So, we have things that depend on us, and that allow us to hope that the panorama can, indeed, improve.

You list some risks in the educational field. What do you mean by “medical practices that are little proven from a scientific point of view”?

To hormonal treatments for children and adolescents. I am not a doctor, but many doctors and psychologists have raised serious objections to these types of practices. In other countries they are backing down, but in Spain we are still continuing with experiments.

He states that “it is not necessary to declare war on the term ‘gender’: it is possible to assume it critically.” What part of that discourse is acceptable according to the teaching of the Church?

The problem is not the term gender, but the anthropology from which it is assumed. The joy of love n. 56 states that “gender and sex can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.” The same thing says Male and female in numbers 6 and 11. And Infinite dignity returns to this statement. I believe that the consolidated trend of the Magisterium in recent years has been to stop declaring war at the end, and to engage in a critical dialogue with what I call “gender theories.”

Gender is the cultural development or interpretation of sex. It is fair to distinguish it from sex, but not separate it.

What differentiates this era from others, in terms of cultural change and intergenerational distance, that makes dialogue on these issues so difficult?

I think the difficulty is framed in what Pope Francis calls “a change of era.” Culture is always constantly changing, but there are moments in history when a true change of era occurs. It is a moment of rupture, where time “changes its skin,” and a deeper adaptation of language, perspective, and gaze is necessary.

The The joy of truth recognizes that “we do not have the necessary culture to face these challenges, and we need to build leadership that points out paths.” It is about learning to propose the beauty of Christ and man in a postmodern world. This requires a new prophecy.

How to balance the Samaritan welcome to those wounded by gender ideology with the proclamation of the anthropological truth of the creation of man and woman as the image of God and what is derived from this affirmation?

In Jesus there is no contradiction between truth and charity. The same Jesus who proclaims the Sermon on the Mount and says that adultery begins in the heart, raises up the adulterous woman.

Stating that sex is a constitutive fact of the person and that it permeates body and soul is not contradicted by recognizing that identity in a psychological sense is bio-psycho-social, and that the person has the task of integrating different elements: body, psyche , culture…

We can say that I am born a woman, but at the same time I have to become a woman. This process is not easy, especially today. I think we have to kneel before each person’s experience.

Christian anthropology is not a theoretical truth that we have to throw at people… If we believe that we are well made, we know that the truth is within each of us and we can recognize it in the desires of our hearts.

Perhaps the task of the Christian companion is to walk with people like Jesus with the disciples of Emmaus, helping them to enrich the grammar with which they interpret their story. If we believe that “the truth sets us free,” then perhaps what we have to have is a lot of patience and love to help people become more and more authentically themselves.