by John Pacheco
The very
capacity to love, the cardinal says, is expressed through the
"spousal character of the body." In other words, if
masculinity is not tied to the male body or femininity to the
female body, as the Church's opponents claim, then people will
discover that their capacity to love will be obscured and gravely
wounded.
Genderism has sought to create a contradiction between the
"spirit" (i.e. the relational expression of sexual
differences) and the "flesh" (i.e. physical expression
of sexual difference). This false dichtomy between the spirit and
the flesh is but another dimension of the first century heresy
known as Gnosticism. Instead of declaring flesh "evil"
like the early Gnostics did, however, the new Gnostics merely
designate the flesh as arbitrary and divorce its masculine or
feminine traits from their psychological counterparts.
His Eminence also rightly points out that human nature itself
cannot be sterile, and because of that, it requires a relational
dimension to its existence:
Formed by God and placed in the garden which he was to cultivate, the man, who is still referred to with the generic expression Adam, experienced a loneliness which the presence of the animals is not able to overcome. He needs a helpmate who will be his partner. The term here does not refer to an inferior, but to a vital helper. This is so that Adam's life does not sink into a sterile and, in the end, baneful encounter with himself. It is necessary that he enter into relationship with another being on his own level. Only the woman, created from the same “flesh” and cloaked in the same mystery, can give a future to the life of the man. It is therefore above all on the ontological level that this takes place, in the sense that God's creation of woman characterizes humanity as a relational reality. (Ibid., 6)
The document goes on to further
explain that this "relational reality" is not merely a
static, detached relationship, but rather a relationship which
rises to the level of interdependence: "In the unity of the
two," the prefect writes, "man and woman are called
from the beginning not only to exist 'side by side' or
'together,' but they are also called to exist mutually 'one for
the other'.... The text of Genesis 2:18-25 shows that marriage is
the first and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this
call" (Ibid., 6).
Indeed, this teaching on the relational reality of both sexes
being called to exist mutually for the other points to a
fundamental truth of the limitation and interdependence of either
sex. In its natural expression, man cannot propagate the human
race alone. He needs, as the Bible says, a "helpmate."
With this realization, man recognizes that he is limited and
finite. His dependence on his wife is a reminder of his greater
reliance on God Himself who is the infinite and unlimited source
of life.
In contrast to this, the opposing feminist-gay world view does
not believe that both partners exist mutually for the other. In
feminism, a woman is not dependent on a man. She is independent
of him and merely relates to a man as she pleases. She uses him
as a commodity to fulfill her base, materialistic pleasures (and
he uses her). Similarly, under the homosexual rubric, there is no
context of existing "for the other" since the
relationship's physiology does not correspond to this language.
In fact, the physiological language of gay sex points in the
opposite direction, where the participants are attempting to join
two uniform expressions of the same nature, and therefore, on an
ontological level, seek to exist for "themselves." This
is why gay relationships are so unstable — because there is
no inherent sense of "existing for the other" as there
is in a normal heterosexual marriage.
According to the Book of Genesis, the human person is revealed to
be made in the very image of God: "So God created man in His
own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He
created them" (Gn 1:27). In the account of creation, not
only does God reveal to us that man's image is a reflection of
the divine essence, but we learn that in creating man, God
created one image with two distinct expressions of that image.
These two distinct expressions of our human nature are as
important to Christian theology as the two natures in Christ's
person. Indeed, the modern attack on these two expressions is a
form of gender "Monophysitism" — the
sixth-century heresy which sought to reduce Jesus's two natures
to only one. In the same way, radical feminism has sought to blur
and even negate the distinction between the male and female
expressions in human nature.
While feminism began in response to legitimate grievances to
promote prospects for equality of women, it has evolved a new
theory of the human person in an effort to seek liberation from
”biological determinism.” In its latest stages, it has
inspired ideologies which call into question the family in its
natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make
homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent —
what Cardinal Ratzinger calls “a new model of polymorphous
sexuality.”
Indeed, the central question of our time concerns authentic human
dignity and how it is defined. On the one hand, secular culture
views man's intrinsic nature as malleable and replaceable. The
culture's materialistic and consumerist philosophy has translated
the human person into a mere product of consumption. Since the
human body itself can be harvested, destroyed, or manipulated to
serve selfish and perverse ends, the physical characteristics
that are specific to either gender are consequently seen as
tentative and optional.
The Church, in opposition to this lethal view, upholds the
sanctity and inalienable constitution of the human person and
believes that there can be no separation between the physical
characteristics of the human body with the associated
psychological and spiritual elements of it. In other words, male
genitalia must correspond to a male psychology. This is why
Cardinal Ratzinger highlights the fact that "male and female
are thus revealed as belonging ontologically to creation
and destined therefore to outlast the present time, evidently in
a transfigured form. In this way, they characterize the 'love
that never ends' (1 Cor 13:8), although the temporal and earthly
expression of sexuality is transient and ordered to a phase of
life marked by procreation and death" (Ibid., 12).
In God's infinite love for us He became "one of us" at
His incarnation. This incarnation represents the sacramental
dimension which vivifies the teaching that man is created in the
image of God. God fulfilled this teaching by showing man that not
only would God Himself become man to save him, but also that
man's destiny is to partake in God's own divine nature (Cf. 2 Pt
1:4). At the moment of the Incarnation, when the divine person of
the Son of God assumed a human nature, human nature itself was
sanctified. Through baptism we become united mysteriously with
Christ's divine nature. Jesus has therefore united Himself to all
men through His incarnation and His baptismal marriage to us, and
therefore any attack on man becomes an attack on God Himself.
As the current culture war continues to rage, all of the Church's
efforts to combat the culture of death must be brought forward.
To defeat this ominous threat to mankind's existence, Christians
must learn to cooperate with one another despite our theological
differences. We must work towards a common "life ethic"
which can serve as a unifying beacon of light and a common front
against an increasingly darkened and hostile world. When the boat
is sinking, there is no time to fight over who is manning the
helm. The important thing is to get to work and start bailing.
John Pacheco
The Catholic Legate
November 2, 2004
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This article was originally featured on Catholic Exchange.