Possibly, the history of human thought will remember the twentieth century as the century of ideologies. Indeed, it was in this century that the various anthropological and political theories that have shaped this philosophical concept of "ideology" were developed. Ideologies of a materialistic slant, ideologies of political influence, and avowedly atheistic ideologies. To use Cardinal De Lubac's expression, "the drama of atheistic humanism"who seek these Godless currents.
Some ideologies have been particularly pernicious for the development of human life in conformity with a supernatural will. This is the case of those that have virulently attacked religion and the supernatural horizon of the person. We will deal briefly with one of these: the current "ideology of gender," heir to these ancient or earlier ideologies, which are also quite malicious with regard to the transcendent and divine meaning of human life.
Man and woman created
Christian faith is far from being framed in this concept of "ideology". In fact, faith for the Church is understood rather as a trust and belief in God, in the divine Person of Jesus Christ, who speaks to every person in the Gospel of salvation. Rather than in concepts, Christian faith is defined by a personal encounter with Christ.
The Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution Gaudium et spes explained very well the anthropological openness of the mystery of Christ and his self-giving for humanity. St. John Paul II, who used number 22 of this Constitution to explain his own pastoral program, insisted on the importance of illuminating the paths of the Church in this doctrinal light. It is a matter of revealing to human beings who they are starting from the truth of Christ.
In the same way the Church, if she wants to travel the roads of the earth with her Good News of redeeming Love, must project the light she has received from her Lord on all events and in particular on this mystery of who the human being is.
Mystery of Christ that teaches us of another mystery so close to each one of us, since we are in him, the mystery of the creation of man and the coming into existence of each person., with their physical, psychic, spiritual, historical, etc. conditions. Christ, in truth, is the first of men, their Model and Master, whom all can imitate, if they know and love him, and thus attain the eternal life that he promises. And Christ is the Head of all the chosen people, for he has been called to holiness and perfection, without distinction of race, language or sex. Men and women find in Christ their fullness of life. For the human being has been created with this difference of sex, which comes from the loving design of God in Creation.
Recent teaching on gender ideology
When these existential premises about the human being, called to live in Christ, are forgotten, the true image of man is necessarily distorted.
This happens in interpretations of a materialistic, reductive, atheistic type, and of course in the interpretation offered by contemporary gender ideology, whose starting point (as we shall see) is the social construction of gender identity in the human person. This means that it forgets both the meaning with which the human being has been created - he is a creature willed in a particular way by God - and also his call to develop as a person in the vocation of Christ, which includes all his existential and gender dimensions.
This is the reason, therefore, that explains why recently both Pope Francis and his predecessors have singled out gender ideology among the deviant interpretations of the human person, with its doctrinal loopholes and flaws seriously pernicious to social life.
Specifically, the denunciation of Pope Francis on numerous occasions, and which will surely be repeated again since the fight for gender has only just begun, is formulated in terms of "ideological colonization": "That is ideological colonization: entering a people with an idea that has nothing to do with them; with groups of the people yes, but not with the people, and thus colonizing a people with an idea that changes or pretends to change their mentality or their structure", said on one occasion (January 19, 2015) commenting on how gender ideology advocates infiltrate through educational needs and teachers in nations.
Indeed, on the political and social level, we are witnessing a strong colonizing influence that attempts to impose this ideology as a unique and necessary interpretation of interpersonal relationships. Instead of recognizing freedom, which is essential to the life of all people, the ideology tries to impose itself from the constituted power, and if it is not already there, it develops the tools that conceptually can allow it to make its way to those instances of domination.
We will return to this great danger, not to say perversity, that gender ideology represents. But first we will give some objective data both on the social and political presence of these efforts, and also, because it can be orienting, of the ideological principles that have built this recent approach of current anthropology.
Thinkers and politicians
Naturally, an ideology cannot be improvised. In order to develop it, it is necessary to have a doctrinal basis on which the intellectuals who will later guide social and political actions can work.
A thought such as the one contained in J. Butler's work entitled ".Gender in dispute"marked the beginning of the construction of the ideology and programs to launch social and political activity on these issues. It can serve as a reference to place us in this context. Its blatantly ideological approach overlooks not only the Judeo-Christian tradition of thought, but also many other classical contributions to the most elementary anthropology.
Moreover, it is necessary to recognize in these efforts to distort the image of man, the previous influences of psychoanalytic theories on human sexuality, the philosophical analysis in postmodernity on violence, the social power in the structures discovered by the socio-political analysis of ideologies. This whole field of thought manifests itself as a particularly appropriate terrain for gender issues.
The culture of some gender currents contemporary
Immersed as we are in a changing culture, it is not unusual for influences to multiply. This is also the case with issues such as radical feminism, in its different variants and approaches, or the weight that certain moral situations have, such as the importance of anthropological issues related to the vulnerability of the human being, and his place in the social and political whole. Not everything is negative or perverse, obviously, but unfortunately the openly unilateral orientation in their approaches prevents the necessary dialogue. This is one of the limiting characteristics of any ideology.
Decades ago, the philosopher Alejandro Llano called ".the new sensibility"This is a new scenario, certainly, which calls for great creativity, with perhaps a greater commitment not to abandon the cultural and educational field of the new generations. It is a new scenario, certainly, which calls for great creativity, with perhaps a greater commitment not to abandon the cultural and educational field of the new generations.
The educational and legal problem
In various countries, the battle for gender has opened up decisively in the legislative arena. It was only natural, after it had acquired a charter of nature in the intellectual and political sphere.
Therefore, it is no longer enough to deal with the field of ideas, in which the colonizing ideology has hardly encountered any resistance. Now it is the turn of those who work in the field of education and morality, i.e. teachers, moralists, educators, legislators, politicians. The gender dispute, as its ideological advocates point out, moves in the social and political space, which must be built on the basis of ideas.
Unfortunately, in this field we are still at the beginning and there is hardly any awareness on the part of those who have a social and political voice of what is happening and of the precautionary measures that would be necessary. The ideology arrives with all its virulence, and seeks to establish itself effectively and deeply into the deepest strata of society. The facade, as always, is goodness, goodness and beauty, but it is not at all clear whether the contents respond to the expectations they offer. Moreover, relying on the truth of the human being on the revelation that tells us of a creation as man and woman, we easily discover the deception behind this ideology. It is a fictitious gender, socially constructed, provoked under the insinuation and persuasion of these intellectual currents that have arisen in postmodernity, that is, in a strong climate of moral permissiveness and relativism. Evidently, it is something far removed from the moral orientation of faith and natural law.
Law professor Maria Calvo, who is an expert on these issues of ideology in the educational field, writes about the necessary otherness of the sexes, with the "difference and complementarity"The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains. In his book "Sexual alterity. Reasons against gender ideology"(Palabra 2014), offers a wide range of reasons that justify the critique of ideology. Without this knowledge, it will not be easy to intervene in the context of a society in open construction, also with these questions so vital to human life. An adequate anthropological understanding, which knows how to react to these onslaughts of ideology, is indeed absolutely essential in the social and political spheres of education and law.
Conclusions
–Gender ideology is openly inscribed in the labile and fragile post-modernity in thought and political action, in terms of many issues and in particular in the analysis of gender and human sexuality.
-In gender ideology there is a lot of imposition, from instances of power that want to make their way without evaluating the truth contained in their social proposal, and that is precisely why it is an ideology that is not very open to dialogue.
-The Christian vision of the human being is always oriented towards truth, whether it comes from science or from other modes of human knowledge. Of course, it also understands true philosophy, but it must react and promptly point out the moral and doctrinal errors presented by vain, if not perverse or deleterious, philosophies in the sphere of morals and personal formation, as is the case with gender ideology.
-Finally, the influence that ideology seeks to exert in the fields of education and politics forces us to become more aware of the problems at stake. It is precisely what is Christian that decisively illuminates society, both in doctrine and above all with the Gospel life, with its truth and with its influence on those institutions of a social and political nature that shape the world in which it lives. In the face of ideology, Christians present the truth of man and woman, created in the image of God and called to holiness in Christ. With the weapons of goodness and truth, they fight to direct society with its laws and human projects towards that place where every difference is assumed in the one love.
