Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 31, 2017. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
Vatican City, Dec 31, 2020 / 10:20 am (CNA).- Pope Francis explained Thursday why the Catholic Church gives thanks to God at the close of a calendar year, even years that have been marked by tragedy, such as 2020’s coronavirus pandemic.
In a homily read by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re Dec. 31, Pope Francis said “tonight we give space to thanks for the year that is drawing to a close. ‘We praise you, God, we proclaim you Lord…’”
Cardinal Re delivered the pope’s homily at the Vatican’s First Vespers liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica. Vespers, also known as Evening Prayer, is part of the Liturgy of the Hours.
Due to sciatic pain, Pope Francis did not attend the prayer service, which included Eucharistic adoration and benediction, and the singing of the “Te Deum,” a Latin hymn of thanksgiving from the early Church.
“It might seem forced, almost jarring, to thank God at the end of a year like this, marked by the pandemic,” Francis said in his homily.
“We think of families who have lost one or more members, of those who have been sick, of those who have suffered from loneliness, of those who have lost their jobs…” he added. “Sometimes someone asks: what is the point of a tragedy like this?”
The pope said we should not be in a rush to answer this question, because not even God responds to our “most distressing ‘whys’ by resorting to ‘better reasons.’”
“God’s response,” he stated, “follows the path of the Incarnation, as the Antiphon to the Magnificat will soon sing: ‘For the great love with which he loved us, God sent his Son in the flesh of sin.’”
First Vespers was prayed at the Vatican in anticipation of the Jan. 1 Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
“God is father, ‘eternal Father,’ and if his Son became man, it is because of the immense compassion of the Father’s heart. God is a shepherd, and which shepherd would give up even a single sheep, thinking that in the meantime he has many more left?” the pope continued.
He added: “No, this cynical and ruthless god does not exist. This is not the God whom we ‘praise’ and ‘proclaim Lord.’”
Francis pointed to the example of the compassion of the Good Samaritan as a way to make “sense” of the tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic, which he said has had the effect of “arousing compassion in us and provoking attitudes and gestures of closeness, care, solidarity.”
Noting that many people have selflessly served others during the difficult year, the pope said “with their daily commitment, animated by love of neighbor, they realized those words of the hymn Te Deum: ‘Every day we bless you, we praise your name forever.’ Because the blessing and praise that most pleases God is brotherly love.”
Those good works “cannot happen without grace, without God’s mercy,” he explained. “For this we give praise to him, because we believe and know that all the good that is done day by day on earth comes, in the end, from him. And looking to the future that awaits us, we again implore: ‘May your mercy always be with us, in you we have hoped.’
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Washington D.C., Dec 31, 2020 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- This article is the second part of Mary Farrow’s two-part series on the Church, gender-critical feminists, and transgender ideology. Part one can be found here.
In their efforts to teach the truth in the face of the transgender ideology, Catholics are finding an unlikely ally: trans-exclusionary, or “gender critical,” feminists, who say the transgender movement hurts women.
But while there are some points of common ground between Catholics and gender critical feminists, there are also important points of disagreement, even on the issue of what gender is.
One point of unity between the Church and trans-exclusionary radical feminists is agreement that the growing transgender movement is especially dangerous to children, who will often outgrow feelings of gender dysphoria naturally, or are led to believe their gender differs from their biological sex simply because they have atypical toy preferences for their biological sex.
“We agree that children should not be subjected to medical experimentation by doctors who profit from ‘affirming’ children, especially girls, in transgender or non-binary identities” in ever-increasing numbers, Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and director of the Catholic Women’s Forum, told CNA.
Kara Dansky, a board member of the Women’s Liberation Front, agreed, telling CNA that children going through the typically-turbulent time of puberty deserve care and guidance, but not medical treatments that could cause them permanent harm.
“A child who is confused about her or his sex definitely deserves compassion and care and guidance to understanding that they’re not born in the wrong body. Their body is fine just the way that it is (barring physical, medical ailments that should be treated appropriately), but we’re all born in the bodies that we’re born in,” she said.
“And we need to learn how to love ourselves physically and emotionally,” Dansky added. “So any child who is struggling to figure out what sex they are really needs caring, compassion and concern and guidance, but not sterilization and mutilation.”
Hasson said she hopes parents are aware of how the growing transgender movement is “radically reshaping how our children understand themselves and others, in ways that are incompatible with Christian beliefs. We need to be compassionate and kind to those who embrace transgender ideology, but we must be wise, and educate and guard ourselves – and our children- against the lies it proposes.”
On causes, churches, and homophobia
On the causes of transgenderism, feminists and Catholics have both points of agreement and of disagreement.
Feminist Mary Kate Fain, who grew up in a conservative Evangelical church and community, said she thinks that in some cases, an overly rigid take on gender roles has contributed to the rise in the transgender phenomenon. For example, she said that feminists have long fought the gender norm that the only way to be a woman is to desire to stay home, cook in the kitchen, and raise children.
Feminists have argued that women can partake in any role in society that she wishes, Fain said.
But today, she said, a pervasive social message has become: “If you want to stay at home, work in the kitchen, and be feminine, have children, then you must be a woman. And therefore, if you don’t want to do any combination of these things, you must not be a woman.”
Fain also said that from her perspective, some communities with rigid gender roles also speak about homosexuality in particularly negative or disparaging ways. That can lead children in these communities who experience same-sex attractions to believe they were born in the wrong body, Fain believes.
She added that she has friends from such communities who, upon experiencing same-sex attractions, choose to identify as transgender or non-binary (neither male nor female), rather than face the stigma of identifying as gay or lesbian.
“We’re seeing this new ‘trans-the-gay-away’ movement happening, and people think that it’s progressive, when in reality this is happening in some of the most conservative areas across the globe,” Fain said.
“It’s happening in Iran where the government outlaws homosexuality on pain of death, but they’re paying for homosexual people to transition in order to no longer be gay. Then we see it in the United States, where the most red states are where you have the highest rates of transgenderism, and it’s no wonder that this is deeply linked to homophobia,” Fain said.
But Hasson cautioned against the assertion that homophobia in Christian and conservative churches is a significant contributor to the rise in transgenderism in youth. She said the assumption that most Christian churches with a biblical view of homosexuality are homophobic is unfair.
“I can’t speak to the views of ‘conservative’ or ‘evangelical’ churches as such. But I can say that those who adhere to biblical morality, like Catholics who adhere to Catholic teaching, are frequently charged with being ‘homophobic’ because they believe that homosexual sexual activity is wrong, or that the homosexual inclination is not what God intended, because sexual desire should be ‘ordered’ rightly towards the opposite sex,” Hasson said.
“So there’s an unfortunate tendency for those who identify as gay or lesbian to cry ‘homophobia’ when a Church teaches against same-sex sexual relationships or behavior,” she noted.
Hasson said most churches today that teach a biblical view of sexuality do so with the distinction of the action and the person. – the Church’s rejection of homosexual acts is not a rejection of the person, but of the act of sexual relations outside of marriage, which the Church holds is only possible between a man and a woman.
“But there are a significant number, including Catholic churches, that rightly reject the expression of sexuality towards a same-sex partner (which is always outside of marriage, as understood by the Church). We need to push back on the left’s talking point that Catholic teaching is by definition ‘homophobic.’”
Furthermore, Hasson said, she doubts the assertion because Christian parents by and large would not prefer that their children be transgender instead of homosexual, as both transgenderism and homosexuality go against God’s plan for human sexuality.
“…conservative churches and evangelicals who are against homosexual behavior are generally not going to accept assertions of a trans-identity,” Hasson said.
“They both involve deviations from God’s explicit design, plus no parent would prefer a trans-identity over a same-sex attraction issue with a child, given the chemical castration and surgical interventions that are becoming commonplace ‘treatments’ for identity confusion.”
Hasson acknowledged that there are some fringe Christian communities that could be perpetuating truly homophobic attitudes. She also added that she is aware of a small subculture of Catholics who hold overly-rigid gender roles, such as that women shouldn’t wear pants and are not capable or fit to hold jobs outside the home.
“I think it’s not healthy when someone does that and that strain of Catholicism is nothing new,” Hasson said, though she added that the sliver of truth there is that there is a different between men and women, and there are certain social cues used to distinguish between men and women that vary from culture to culture.
“Within that narrow slice, my sense is that someone who’s growing up and feels constrained, if they feel some sort of weight of conscience like – ‘Oh, my gosh. I’m being a terrible woman,’ – they’re also going to be getting a message that there are men or women,” Hasson said.
She said she didn’t necessarily see how someone who failed to fit into rigid gender stereotypes would then assume that they were actually a different biological sex.
“The most fundamental thing is whether you are a female, and that just doesn’t change,” she said.
“And the fact that someone has put you in a box as to how to express that, it would take quite a leap of logic or something to talk that around and say, ‘Oh, that means I must be the opposite sex,’ when everything else that you would be taught in that same environment would say, ‘No, you are one sex or another.’ And your body tells you that. And science tells you that.”
First-person voices
A growing number of people who were given medical treatments to transition their gender, and then regretted it, are now speaking out against the push to medically treat minors with gender dysphoria.
Keira Bell, a 23 year-old woman in the UK, has recently joined a lawsuit against the gender clinic that began her gender transition when she was 16 and wanted to be a male.
At 16, Bell was given hormone blockers to stunt her development as a female, and then was given male hormones. Bell said the treatments gave her symptoms of menopause, depleted her sex drive and weakened her bones, and may have rendered her infertile. At the age of 20, the National Health Service paid for a surgery that removed her breasts, the Daily Mail reported.
It was not long after the surgery that Bell started to question her gender transition. She told the Daily Mail that she felt “stuck” between male and female, and that she didn’t feel she fit with either gender. At the age of 22, she decided to detransition back to female, and to fight giving such treatments to other young people. She said she felt like a “guinea pig” that was experimented on by the gender clinic, without much thought given as to how the treatments would affect her life in the long-term.
Bell is now considered a key witness in a high-profile case against Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the gender clinic where she had gone for treatments. The lawsuit was brought against the clinic by a psychiatric nurse formerly employed at the clinic, who is arguing in the suit that children are not capable of consenting to the powerful and experimental puberty blockers and hormones being prescribed to them.
Bell is just one of many people – many of them women – who are speaking out after having gone through experimental gender transitioning treatments as minors and who are now in the process of detransitioning.
Charlie Evans, a 28 year-old woman living in the UK, is in the process of detransitioning after identifying as trans since her teenage years. After sharing her story, Evans was contacted by so many men and women who regretted their gender transitions that she was inspired to found The Detransition Advocacy Network, a non-profit that seeks to support men and women who regret their gender transitions.
Evans told The Telegraph that she attributes her own desire to transition as a young person to abuse that she suffered outside of her family, that made her hate her own body so much that she wanted to cut parts of it off. That experience seems to be common among the people who contact her Detransition network, she added.
“…you can’t be born in the wrong body – it’s our minds that need treatment, not our sex,” Evans said.
This article was originally published on CNA Feb. 13, 2020.
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Gal Gadot and Chris Pine star in a scene from the movie "Wonder Woman 1984." (CNS photo/Clay Enos, Warner Bros.)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 USCCB Rating: Not rated at the time of this review Reel Rating: 4 out of 5 reels
(Disclaimer: The following review contains spoilers!)
Whenever discussing neo-paganism in my World Religions course, I always begin with the Law of Attraction and its most popular treatise The Secret. Put simply, this “law” states that reality is a manifestation of one’s thought process; anything that exists was created by a man’s own mind. In small terms, this theology can seem redemptive. No matter how insurmountable one’s problems, they can be solved instantly by a shift in consciousness – no money or training required (though often offered).
Yet taken to its logical conclusion, a nightmare is unleashed. Wonder Woman 1984 – which to my surprise had nothing to do with the philosophy of George Orwell – is a needed criticism of this idea, albeit a silly one.
Seventy years after Diana Prince (Gadot) became a superhero during the throes of the Great War, she is working incognito as an archaeologist for the Smithsonian while moonlighting as a crime-stopping vigilante. One day, her geologist friend Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) finds an odd artifact than somehow grants the user a single wish but takes something precious in return. Diana wishes for her dead boyfriend Steve (Chris Pine) to return but looes much of her power. Barbara becomes popular, pretty, and strong, but also loses her humility and charm. Worst of all is Max Lord (Pedro Pascal of Mandalorian fame), who wishes to become the magic rock and thus takes what is precious from all who wish upon him.
The rest of the film is a descent into apocalyptic stupidity as Lord attempts take over the world via Reagan’s SDI by granting a Faustian wish to every breathing soul.
2017’s Wonder Woman was a winning exercise in what made a great superhero film. Having succeed, director Patty Jenkins let her scrunchied hair down this time and just had fun. WW84 is certainly entertaining, often at the expense of common sense. The audience is treated to the famous invisible jet, Barbara transforming into a literal cat, Diana flying through the skies by lassoing lightning, and an insanely cool suit of armor that alludes to Jane Fonda’s sci-fi cult classic Barbarella. Mixed in this cinematic stew is more Eighties Easter eggs than an episode of Stranger Things, sure to delight Gen X kids everywhere.
The Law of Attraction resurfaces as a new fad every decade or so, but its roots go back to the garden of Eden, when Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the promise to “be like God.” Like so many of his lies, it is a half-truth. We are to be like God—but in his holiness, not His authority or power. There are endless problems with the dogmatic assumptions of the Law of Attraction. One is man’s inability to understand the consequences of his actions. “I wish you would drop dead,” an angry husband yells at his wife. When she immediately complies, he is horrified.
Worst still, the Law promotes a terrifying anthropology. If another human is simply a creation of my imagination, I have no more responsibility for their welfare than the papier-mâché dinosaurs I made in third grade. Starving children in Sudan don’t need charity or just social structures, only positive vibes. Humans, and all reality, are a playground for pleasure. That’s why Barbara loses everything that made her lovable when she becomes the villain Cheetah. As Lord amasses power, the world gradually descends into madness and evil.
The film’s ending has a twist that is rare in cinema: the day is saved when the villain freely gives up his power. This narrative is uncommon, frankly, because it is unrealistic. Yet by the time Diana confronts Lord, he is so formidable that this is the only option. Lord partially unleashed this scheme to impress his son, whom he thought viewed him a failure. Yet the boy never saw him this way, and Lord is now endangering any relationship with him. Thus, Lord and the rest of humanity renounces their wishes and all returns to normal. Diana, too, must say goodbye to Steve and accept his passing. Dreams, whether they come true or not, cannot keep us from our cross, which all must accept.
I’m probably infusing more meaning into Wonder Woman 1984 than Jenkins intended. Most of the movie requires a suspension of disbelief tolerable only to people under 18. Yet its popcorn veneer works to its advantage. Few teenagers are happy to sit through a lecture on theology but will gladly watch Gal Gadot save the world.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
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Nick Olszyk teaches theology at Marist Catholic High School in Eugene, Oregon. He was raised on bad science fiction movies, jelly beans, and TV shows that make fun of bad science fiction movies. Visit him online at his website, Catholic Cinema Crusade.
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