Vatican's congregation to publish document confronting feminism, "gender" ideology

Vatican City, Jul 28, 2004 / 22:00 pm

On Saturday, July 31, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will publish a document that confronts confusions generated by feminism and by the "gender" ideology.

The document, published with the approval of Pope John Paul II, is entitled "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World."

According to Vatican officials who spoke to CNA, the document confronts some of the most critical consequences of  "women's issues."

In particular, the text offers the Catholic perspective to two common distortions of feminism:

" First, the tendency to see women as opposed to men, and therefore, their liberation as a task that is only accomplished by seeking to grab "power" from men.

" Second, the tendency to minimize sex as a physical difference and replace it by the "purely cultural element" of "gender."

The document sees this second feminist distortion as the source of current cultural and politician trends calling into question family and marriage as the commitment between one man and one woman.

According to Vatican sources, the document will only provide "initial reflections" from a biblical and theological perspective on the issue, and will propose a perspective of reconciliation -"active collaboration"- between the sexes, highlighting the difference between man and woman as complementary and not opposed.

The document will be published in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

CNA will make the full document available to its readers on Saturday.