“Today, in schools they are teaching this to children–to children!–that everyone can choose their gender,” he said in the private meeting. “Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well and has a clear mind, he was telling me: ‘Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator, he’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite.’”Of course he is referring to Pope Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013 but continues to live at the Vatican. He added that the increased visibility of the trans community is due to “ideological colonizing” through textbooks financed by wealthy institutions in “very influential countries,” which he described as “terrible.” This belief stays consistent with a statement he made earlier this year in which he said, “The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created,” warning that “absolute power over our own bodies…leads to the delusion that we enjoy absolute power over creation.” In April of last year at a general audience in Rome, the Pope said, “I wonder if so-called gender theory may not also be an expression of frustration and resignation that aims to erase sexual differentiation because it no longer knows how to come to terms with it.”
New Ways Ministry, an LGBT advocacy group, criticized the Pope’s remarks.
“The pontiff’s remarks are further evidence that church officials need desperately to educate themselves about the lives and experiences of LGBT people,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry.
“Nobody chooses a gender identity. They discover it.”
DeBernardo called on the Vatican to establish a commission to “update their understanding of gender identity and sexual orientation.”
