Pope Benedict made the annual papal Christmas address to his Curia today, in which popes reveal their thoughts on the state of the Church and the world. Benedict focused his remarks on the family, the nature of interreligious dialogue, and the new evangelization. Of particular interest are his strong remarks on the family, in which he affirms its fundamental nature and role and sees it threatened not only by a mistaken conception of human freedom but chiefly by a “new philosophy of sexuality” under the mutable banner of “gender” rooted in the denial of Being:
Man’s refusal to make any commitment – which is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering – means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his “I” ultimately for himself, without really rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.
The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient).
These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.
According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will.
The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation.
Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.
December 21st, 2012 | 11:42 am
“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves”
Is this always a bad thing? I’m glad that some folks have decided not to live up to some culturally imposed gender role: we have male chefs along with women physicians and politicians and even military leaders. They co-exist just fine along with male firefighters and female “stay-at-home moms”.
Many of these cultural ideals are arbitrary, anyhow: didn’t our “manly” forefathers wear powdered wigs and silk stockings?
Further, people with physical limitations often attempt to rise above them: I’ve seen amputees run marathons, for example.
Is it true that only women have a uterus and that only they can bear a child? Sure, but so what? What other conclusions are we supposed to draw from this?
December 21st, 2012 | 12:35 pm
James, the Pope’s entire point is that sex differences are not all cultural, that they cannot all be controlled and stripped away. At the end of the day, we are both body and soul, and not just will. He attacks these assumptions, but instead of defending them, you just assert them. The pope is saying that man has a nature that is received, and not decided by him, and you treat the Pope as if he were trying to decide our nature, without really proving that that’s what he’s doing.
December 21st, 2012 | 1:52 pm
James,
Step back, think about what the first sentence of your final paragraph implies. Then consider your response to it. You dismiss the potential for human creation, life sustainment and child-bearing with a, “so what?”. Your frivolous treatment betrays a lack of understanding or seriousness or both.
If you do not believe that, alone, disregarding the myriad other differences, doesn’t mean we have been given a specific nature by God, I recommend trying to breastfeed your next child.
Merry Christmas.
December 21st, 2012 | 2:32 pm
James, you got a lot of learning to do, that is clear. And I am not talking about culture. Maybe you can start with the old left-right brain things that scientists figured out decades ago. Male brains don’t work the same way as female brains. We have less connections from left to right. That alone is a pretty big deal. After all, everything starts from the brain, doesn’t it? How about hormones? The fact that men and women have different hormonal makeups is not something made up by right wing religious nuts. Hormones affect the brain, more differences. It isn’t just about the ability to make babies.
December 21st, 2012 | 2:46 pm
James –
One problem the Pope sees – and a lot of us who trust the Church as an expert on human nature – is not the plasticity of certain cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity but that a lot of these more modern conceptions back into a false dilemma.
For example, while it could be true that more women nowadays have more specific career aspirations than they have had in the past, the that she has been taught to pursue these goals has pit her against herself. Her biology is seen as an obstacle to these goals and thus an obstacle that stands in the way of her happiness. Her fertility is then a problem in need of a solution. It isn’t uncommon nowadays to find fertility treated like an illness – exemplified by the fact that women go to doctors (people who heal) in order to have this problem cured (by interfering with the beauty of their feminine biology).
But Pope Benedict doesn’t buy into this dilemma. Neither do I. Women might just find that they would be happier if they viewed their biological capabilities as a good thing pursued their personal goals without subverting their biological nature.
December 21st, 2012 | 3:17 pm
Most men are also physically much stronger than most women. In most cases, the difference is drastic. For example, a female professional tennis player will normally find a male high school tennis player to be a decent challenge.
It has been my experience that unfortunately women do not always do the same job as well as men, when that job involves physical strength and the enforcement of strict discipline. The US military is rife with double standards created in the name of “equality.” For starters, the physical fitness requirements are different for men and women. There were many instances where the women did not pull their weight in terms of getting physical work done, and they were often lax in confronting subordinates directly, preferring to gossip and spread rumors.
If women are capable of passing the same physical fitness requirements as men, and of impassionately maintaining good order and discipline, then they have earned the right to military office. In my experience, though, they’re generally not as good at those things as men are.
Sex differences are real. Of course, women are much better than men at other things. In certain respects, women’s strengths — mercy, social graces, beauty — are more noble than the physical dominance and preoccupation with rank and with control that men excel at. Men and women can learn much from each other, and marriage is the institution par excellence in which such learning occurs. But men can only learn from women as women, and women can only learn from men as men, not as blandly amorphous asexual things.
December 21st, 2012 | 3:24 pm
As concerned as I am with James’ easy dismissal of women’s ability to bear children, at heart I think he confuses the difference between roles a culture deems appropriate for men and women and the inherent differences and complementary attributes of each sex. Thankfully we’ve arrived at a point where most arbitrary role distinctions have been eliminated; that does not mean men and women are the same.
December 25th, 2012 | 12:29 pm
Whence comes this priviledging of the “natural” over the “social”? Those who have no “social nature”(the only ones of which are abandoned feral infants) are so traumatized that they are pretty much insane. The natural IS the social.
January 3rd, 2013 | 4:36 am
jason,
The nature of humankind is social and two-sexed, not one without the other. However, this or that particular socialization is not a given. Socialization in accord with human nature is the pith of the issue raised by Benedict.
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