Vatican City—The Vatican on Monday launched into the debate on gender ideology, publishing an educational document called “Male and Female He Created Them.”
Subtitled “Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education,” it is intended to help Catholic school teachers counter ideas which “deny the natural difference between a man and a woman.”
“It is becoming increasingly clear that we are now facing with what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality,” says the paper drawn up by the Roman Church’s education ministry.
The document notes “challenges” rising from gender theory which “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”
The Church is trying to promote “dialogue on the question of gender in education,” Milan’s Gonzague Institute professor Roberto Zappala said in a statement.
Gender theory “seeks to impose a single school of thought,” which determines the education of children, said Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, of the Congregation for Catholic doctrine.
The theory “leads to educational programs and legislative orientations that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy separated from the biological difference between male and female,” Versaldi said.
The document, which supports the role of mother and father in a traditional family, outlines “the Christian vision of anthropology [which] sees sexuality as a fundamental component of one’s personhood.
“It is from [their] sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman.”
The document is to be distributed internationally across the Catholic educational system.