Gender: The problem isn’t the term but the anthropology behind it, Catholic expert says

Madrid, Spain, Nov 21, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Marta Rodríguez Díaz, a Catholic expert on gender ideology, said that rather than fighting gender ideology, the mission of the Catholic Church is “to seek to make light shine in the darkness” and to offer critical dialogue.

Rodríguez also pointed out that “if the Church is not credible today in terms of gender, it is not for a lack of having much to say but because there is a lack of educators who know how to convey its message in a comprehensive and accurate way.”

Rodríguez was chosen by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference to provide formation to diocesan delegates for family and life pastoral care regarding the challenge the gender ideology issue represents for the Catholic Church.

She holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University and is a professor in the philosophy department of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. She is also coordinator of the academic area of ​​the Institute for Women’s Studies.

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

She spoke recently with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, about gender ideology, Catholic anthropology, and how it relates to the culture today.

ACI Prensa: How should the Church combat gender ideology?

Rodríguez: I don’t know if I like the word “combat” … I think that the mission of the Church is to be light and to seek to make light shine in the darkness. To be light means proposing the entire truth about the human being, to educate and also to warn and point out those ideas that contradict the dignity of the person or don’t help attain its fullness.

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

According to the data you offer, pastoral workers either have a vague understanding of the Catholic teaching on the subject or don’t know or understand it at all. What steps must be taken to reverse this situation?

Formation, formation, formation. It’s necessary to provide formation in Christian anthropology. My experience is that pastoral workers have insufficient knowledge of it and are not capable of proposing it in all its beauty and depth. In addition, it’s necessary to provide formation in moral theology so that they know how to discern the pastoral applications that are appropriate in each case, without in any way blurring the truth about the [human] person. It’s also necessary to provide formation in a pastoral style that knows how to connect with the postmodern world and to propose the perennial beauty of the Gospel in a language that is comprehensible to today’s world.

I think that if the Church is not credible today on gender issues, it’s not because it doesn’t have much to say but because there is a lack of formators who know how to convey its message in a comprehensive and accurate way.

There is a crisis in the family, in which the roles of men and women are confused. Is this a main cause of the confusion among young people on the issue of gender? 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 role models, it is difficult to carry out the process of identifying with one’s own sex that is necessary in adolescence. In addition, there is the crisis of the family itself: many dysfunctional families, with absent fathers and mothers.

The media, social media, and movies certainly also have an influence, as they insist so clearly on one single message. In short, I think that today’s kids are bombarded by ideas that confuse them, and they have no solid points of reference to guide them.

You say that knowing things have not been done well up to now is “liberating.” In what sense?

In the sense that it makes us see what depends on us and where we can improve our discourse to be more credible. Personally, I am very concerned when it’s said that the cause of all the confusion among young people is from social media, the news media, laws… because all that is true, but it’s also true that it doesn’t seem that it will change in the next few years.

But if, 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 the task; that we have not been able to propose the message with the depth and beauty that our times demanded … then we have things that depend on us, and that allow us to hope that the landscape can, indeed, improve.

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

[I’m referring] to hormonal treatments for children and adolescents. I‘m not a doctor, but many doctors and psychologists have raised serious objections to this type of practice. In other countries they are backing off, but in Spain we are still carrying out experiments.

You state that “it’s not necessary to declare war on the term ‘gender’: It’s possible to take it up critically.” What part of that discourse is acceptable according to the magisterium of the Church?

The problem is not the term gender but the anthropology from which it draws. Amoris Laetitia No. 56 states that “gender and sex can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.” The same is said in Male and Female He Created Them in Nos. 6 and 11. And Dignitas Infinita again takes up this affirmation. I believe that the consolidated tendency of the magisterium in recent years has been to stop declaring war on the term and to engage in a critical dialogue with what I call “gender theories.”

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

What makes this era different from others in terms of cultural change and the distance between generations that makes dialogue on these issues so difficult?

I think the difficulty lies in what Pope Francis calls “a change of era.” Culture is always in continuous change, but there are moments in history when a true change of era occurs. It’s a moment of rupture, where time “changes its skin,” and a deeper adaptation of language, perspective, and vision is needed.

Veritatis Gaudium recognizes that “we still lack the culture necessary to confront this crisis; we lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths.” It’s about learning to propose the beauty of Christ and of man in a postmodern world. This requires a new prophetic word. 

How can we balance welcoming those wounded by gender ideology as the good Samaritan would, with the proclamation of the anthropological truth of the creation of man and woman as the image of God and what follows 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.

Affirming that sex is a constitutive reality of the person and that it permeates body and soul does not contradict the recognition that identity in the 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 simple, and even less so today. I believe that we have to seriously take into consideration the experience of each person.

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

Perhaps the task of the Christian companion is to walk with people as Jesus did with the disciples [going to] Emmaus, helping them to enrich the grammar with which they interpret their story. If we believe that “the truth makes us free,” then perhaps what we need to have is a lot of patience and love to accompany people to be more and more authentically themselves.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.