Pope Francis criticized “gender ideology” in recent remarks, warning it presented an extreme danger.
He said erasing differences between men and women through transgender ideology aims to make everyone the same, which cancels out humanity.
“It is very important that there is this meeting, this meeting between men and women, because today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, which cancels out differences,” Francis said.
The Pope argued that while pastoral care should be provided for all people, gender ideology goes too far in blurring lines between the sexes.
It promotes an “anthropology of gender” that eliminates human diversity and richness by diluting differences.
“Erasing differences is erasing humanity. Man and woman, however, are in a fruitful ‘tension,’” he said.
“Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” Francis said. “Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women. All humanity is the tension of differences. It is to grow through the tension of differences. The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation.”
They “do not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or diverse sexual preferences from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it eliminates differences, and that erases humanity, the richness of humanity, both personal, cultural, and social, the diversities and the tensions between differences,” he added.
Francis has repeatedly spoken out against gender ideology as one of today’s most dangerous forms of ideological colonization.
While not planning an extensive writing, he finds it necessary to occasionally address the issue and draw a distinction between acceptance and pastoral care versus radical gender ideology.