St Charles Lwanga - and a reflection on ideological colonisation

 In 2015 I posted on St Charles Lwanga and his Companions, whose feast day is celebrated in the Catholic Church on 3rd June each year: St Charles Lwanga and Companions: an opportunity to comment on recent events. 

I was reminded of that post when I visited a local library during this last week, and encountered its display of LGBT books, set out to mark Pride month. I really did get a sense of a colonisation of a cultural space by a particular ideology. In using the term "ideology" it is worth reminding ourselves of how the working of the concept of ideology is explained by Luigi Guissani in his book The Religious Sense (p.129 in my Ignatius Press copy from 1990):

... it is a theoretical-practical construction based on an aspect of reality, a true aspect, but taken up in such a way that it becomes unilaterally and tendentiously made into an absolute; and this comes about through a philosophy or a political project.

Ideology is built up on some starting point offered by our experience; thus, experience itself is taken up as a pretext for an operation that is determined by extraneous or exorbitant preoccupations.

Faced with, for example, the existence of a "poor" person, one theorizes about the problem of this person's need, but the concrete person with his or her concrete need becomes a pretext; the individual in his concreteness is marginalised once he has provided the starting point for the intellectual and his or her opinions or has provided the starting point for the politician so that he can justify and publicise an operation of his. The view of the intellectuals, which the powers that be find convenient and take up as their own, become common mentality by means of mass media, schools and propaganda...

As we mark their feast day, we can remind ourselves of the witness to Catholic teaching on same sex relations offered by St Charles Lwanga and his companions as they resisted the desires of the Ugandan ruler of their time; and of the witness of Rocco Buttiglione which I also described in my post in 2015.

The value of difference

As retired member of the National Education Union, I receive their member magazine, Educate, regularly. The March/April 2023 issue contains coverage of the union's recent and, as I write, ongoing strike action in schools in England. It also has a feature article exploring the charity Lifting Limits. The head of education at the charity is a member of the National Education Union, and is cited in their magazine feature.

There is an aspect of the work of Lifting Limits in schools that emerges from the feature that is quite commendable. This is their work around recognising and challenging roles that are often stereotypically described as being "for boys" or "for girls". This can relate to the sports in which children are expected to participate, to the examples of scientists who feature in the curriculum, to subject choices at A-level and to career choices as they leave school. In all of these areas, and more, there is no reason why children should not be equally encouraged in their choices independently of their sex as male or female. 

However, I do think there is a danger in assuming that role stereotypes based on sex are always going to be harmful. There will be boys and girls whose aspirations match to such stereotypes, and who are quite comfortable with those aspirations. Asking them to question their aspirations, on the grounds that they are stereotypical, is not going to do them any favours. A number of the examples of practice described in the feature in Educate usefully include the contributions of women as well as men; but this is only of value if it offers boys and girls more freedom around their aspirations and is not used to create an ideological opposition to aspirations that follow stereotypes. It should act as an enabler to all aspirations, both those that go against a stereotype and those that go along with it.

The feature refers to another aspect of Lifting Limits work. Citing an example from one primary school:

The school is also teaching children about the use of pronouns and the fact that not everyone identifies as the gender registered at their birth. One year 3 child has a parent who is transgender. "For Fathers' Day they wanted to draw a dress on their card, and they put the transgender flag inside it. It has been easily accepted by all of their peers".

Lifting Limits is keen to break the habit in some schools of labelling children by gender and highlight the things children have in common with one another instead.

"Having school structures and routines that highlight gender is saying, girls and boys are different,", says Kirsty [head of education at Lifiting Limits], adding that this can encourage unhealthy relationships between children.

Certainly it is unhealthy to have a school environment that deliberately plays boys off against girls. But avoiding that is not the same as adopting a reluctance to speak of a difference between boys and girls. This  contrasts sharply with what Pope Francis had to say about gender in a recent interview, where he emphasised the value of such difference: Pope Francis: I dream of a more pastoral, a more open Church:

Pope Francis then stated that he is not writing a new encyclical. In response to a question about whether he has been asked to write a document on the subject of gender, the Pope replied in the negative. On this topic, he reiterated that he “always makes a distinction between pastoral work with people of different sexual orientation” on the one hand, “and gender ideology. They are two different things," he said. "Gender ideology, at this time, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonisations. It goes beyond the sexual sphere. Why is it dangerous? Because it dilutes differences, and the richness of men and women and of all humanity is the tension of differences. It is growing through the tension of differences. The gender question dilutes differences and makes the world equal, all level, all the same. And this goes against the human vocation.”

Drag Queen Story Hour: ideological colonisation of the family?

 Pope Francis is well known for advocating in favour of an approach of welcome and closeness to people who identify as LGBT+. He has done this on a number of occasions and in different contexts - in-flight interviews, response to LGBT+ persons when he meets them, correspondence with Fr James Martin. It is not possible to accuse him of advocating a hateful attitude towards an LGBT+ community.

However, in his most recent in-flight interview he distinguished this approach of welcome towards persons from "groups" and "lobby". And he has also spoken over the years of an "ideological colonisation of the family".

Story time certainly isn't over for Aida H Dee , the Drag Queen and founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK says "hateful" protesters need to "get a job" instead of turning up at their events.

The Drag Story Hour UK consists of Drag Artists reading books to children across the country, in nurseries, libraries and museums. Aida’s aim is to ensure that children are given the opportunity to listen to stories that are diverse and inclusive of all people. They want children to have positive LGBTQ role models, something Aida says they didn’t have growing up.

Aida H Dee, the drag persona of Sab Samuel who founded Drag Queen Story Hour UK, says that most protesters don’t know what they’re protesting over. "They think they’re protesting against gender ideology and the concept of LGBTQ being out on children in some way," Sab said. "Kids have always been gay and trans and queen and non-binary, kids were always a part of the LGBTQ community, even before they knew it themselves."

The above is taken verbatim from an ITV News website report: "They should get a job" : Story time drag queen hits back at protestors". The accuracy of their reporting of the quotations attributed to Sab Samuel/Aida H Dee can be verified from the video clip included in the report.

The last sentence quoted above does express an ideology, what I think Pope Francis would recognise as an "ideological colonisation of the family". It is reasonable to expect that not all families will want their children to take part in an event such as this, which clearly has an intent with regard to LGBT+ ideology. 

As Sab Samuel/Aida H Dee suggests in the video clip, the idea of drag artists telling stories to children has been around for a long time - Christmas pantomime is in some ways its typical manifestation. But it does now seem to have gained an ideological intention that would have been absent from those earlier expressions, when a drag act would not have been identified as an expression of an LGBT+ identity.

Cultural decolonisation or cultural re-colonisation? The example of the Museum of the Home

Is the current anxiety for "decolonisation" of our culture and some of its institutions genuinely about "de-colonising"? Or is it in reality the replacement of a physical/historical colonialism by a new, ideological colonialism - an ideological "re-colonisation"?

In Bristol, this question has arisen around the figure of Edward Colston (this Wikepedia link includes a description of the renaming of a number of institutions in Bristol previously named after Edward Colston). Money that he made in trade at sea, which included a significant governance role in a company that traded in African slaves, was used in part to fund a wide range of philanthropic and civic projects in Bristol.

In Shoreditch, in East London, the question has arisen around the figure of Robert Geffrye. The museum that is now known as the Museum of the Home was formerly known as the Geffrye Museum, and is located on the site of almshouses that were originally endowed by Robert Geffrye. Like Edward Colston, some of the investments from which Robert Geffrye benefitted were related to the slave trade; and, also like Edward Colston, Robert Geffrye was responsible for charitable endowments.

Should figures such as Edward Colston and Robert Geffrye be excised from our contemporary cultural expression? Today we see the trade in African slaves as being akin to a mortal sin; at the times of Edward Colston and Robert Geffrye the prevailing culture did not see it in that way. Thinking philosophically rather than historically, we should recognise that, whatever the prevailing cultural acceptance at the time, participation in the slave trade represented a denial of the dignity and respect due to other human persons (African slaves). In other areas of their activity, however, we should also recognise that figures like Edward Colston and Robert Geffrye acted in a way which favoured the dignity and respect due to other human persons (the beneficiaries of their almshouses or educational institutions).

They are figures who represent a mixture of wheat and tares, to use a Biblical analogy. Until recently, our cultural expression was very willing to reflect the wheat and to disregard the tares; and now it is perhaps very willing to reflect the tares and disregard the wheat. I think that a just cultural expression needs to reflect a correct assessment of both the wheat and the tares; and that cultural re-assessment may not be a correct assessment if its only outcome is the removal of the names of Edward Colston and Robert Geffrye from institutions associated with them. If their presence is excised, the question is not concluded until we look at what replaces that presence; and a recent visit to the Museum of the Home, formerly known as the Geffrye Museum, raises exactly that question of what has replaced the former expression.

In 2021, the museum reopened after an extensive redevelopment, which added a series of exhibition spaces in what had originally been the basements of the almshouses. The museum has also undertaken a process of engagement with its local community in East London, which is reflected in some of the displays in the new exhibition "alcoves" in the basement and in the narratives associated with the long standing "Rooms through Time" along the main corridor above ground. [One might recognise, though, as was suggested by my fellow visitor, that those who have taken part in the resulting displays are of middle or professional class.]

Of the new displays, I found two to be of particular interest. One used recorded video, photos and objects to discuss the range of religious belief that might exist in the locality of the museum, basing it on the objects of religious significance that might be displayed in a person's home. I found the representation of Christianity disappointing in two ways. Firstly, it didn't express the practical act of charity and advocacy in its relation to specific belief about the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus; and secondly it did not refer to Christian churches. The person who spoke came over as if they might be a Christian without any specific denominational affiliation, which whilst it may be fair to the particular individual who contributed, may not be true of the local community as a whole. 

The other display that I found interesting was one that explored what it means to speak of "home". This was represented by photographs and accounts of residents from the local area. I was struck by how many of he displays described people who had lived long term in rented accommodation that they had made "home". This, I thought, was an interesting exploration for a museum whose "charism" is that of representing the physical displays of homes through time.

The "Rooms through Time" displays  show a series of full size recreations of living rooms from different times. Each display includes the decor - carpets, wall paper, windows, curtains - and furniture of the time. From visits that we made before the redevelopment of the museum, I recall these displays being tweaked to reflect the time of year. Our recent visit was in early December, so the narratives associated with the rooms and materials displayed on dining tables reflected Boxing Day or the Jewish feast of Hannukah. In one or two cases, the new narratives did not really reflect the content of the room, with a certain sense that a narrative had been imposed on a room that did not necessarily express the narrative. A room whose narrative was that of an Imperial Airways pilot contained some features of art deco style - Critall windows, an art deco style dining table, a fireplace - that I recall from an earlier visit to the museum being the real point of this particular display. Likewise, a 60s/70s open plan home with a mezannine sleeping area above a kitchen area to one side of the main living space, is now accompanied by a narrative of a lesbian friend who has been kicked out of her home staying overnight after a late night party (a mattress and bedding on the floor having been added to the previously existing display). Here in particular, the "home" being displayed - a style of open plan living - really does not justify the imposed narrative. In both of these examples, the narrative does not produce a style of home-making - furnishings, furniture, displayed objects - that one would expect in a display of a "home".

Which leads to the question raised at the beginning of this post. Has the former Geffrye Museum, in distancing itself from the person of Robert Geffrye, chosen to replace that former association with a historical colonialism with a new, ideological form of colonialisation?  And, at the same time, to make itself less a Museum of the Home?

Pope Francis on two signs of the times

There are a couple of things said by Pope Francis in recent months that have caught my attention, though they are only one part of a more wide ranging speech. The first comes from Pope Francis' address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See at the beginning of January (I have added the italics):

The diminished effectiveness of many international organizations is also due to their members entertaining differing visions of the ends they wish to pursue. Not infrequently, the centre of interest has shifted to matters that by their divisive nature do not strictly belong to the aims of the organization. As a result, agendas are increasingly dictated by a mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity and the cultural roots that constitute the identity of many peoples. As I have stated on other occasions, I consider this a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression and is now taking the form of the “cancel culture” invading many circles and public institutions. Under the guise of defending diversity, it ends up cancelling all sense of identity, with the risk of silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities. A kind of dangerous “one-track thinking” [pensée unique] is taking shape, one constrained to deny history or, worse yet, to rewrite it in terms of present-day categories, whereas any historical situation must be interpreted in the light of a hermeneutics of that particular time, not that of today.

The wording is, as one might expect of its context, couched in a diplomatic way; but I think Pope Francis' intention is clear. And it is not only international organisations that have come to be taken up by an LGBT+ agenda that does not really belong to their aims; there are many trade unions, commercial enterprises, and employers that have allowed the same to happen to them. By speaking out against a "mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity" - that is, a mindset that denies the nature of human persons as biologically male or female - Pope Francis allows others to take up that conversation in the public realm. There is also a useful warning about the nature of identity. Today it seems a truism that the LGBT+ person should be able to express that identity in their lives, and there is some merit in this when it is considered at the level of the individual person. But when viewed at the level of society as a whole, where the question is one about the impact for others, Pope Francis warns about an undermining of all sense of identity affecting society as a whlole. We have yet to really see how this works out in the years to come, as a younger generation grows up with a predominance of this mindset.

The second observation came during Pope Francis' visit to Malta, when he met with the diplomatic corps, the local authorities and representatives of civil society. Again, I have added the italics.

If the complexity of the migration issue is to be properly addressed, it needs to be situated within a broader context of time and space.  Time, in the sense that the migration phenomenon is not a temporary situation, but a sign of our times.  It brings with it the burden of past injustice, exploitation, climatic changes and tragic conflicts, whose effects are now making themselves felt.  From the poor and densely populated south, great numbers of people are moving to the wealthy north: this is a fact, and it cannot be ignored by adopting an anachronistic isolationism, which will not produce prosperity and integration. From the standpoint of space, the growing migration emergency — here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine — calls for a broad-based and shared response.  Some countries cannot respond to the entire problem, while others remain indifferent onlookers! 

What has caught my attention here is the suggestion that the question of migration is a permanent feature of our times, and a feature that should not be considered as limited to certain countries and not others. In other words, an accomodation of migrants should be of the essential make up of more prosperous societies, both in a legal sense and in the provisions of actors in civil society. 

Can we just make it up?

In his newsletter for last weekend, our parish priest reflected on martyrdom in the light of several feast days occurring around this time: St Oliver Plunkett, Sts John Fisher and Thomas More, St John the Baptist and, today, Sts Peter and Paul. The italics added below are mine:

Some martyrs were ordered on pain of death to deny Christ and conform to false worship, and refused. Others, like John the Baptist, paid with their lives for preaching a message that was uncomfortable for those in power, or for standing firm on a point of principle, like Thomas More and John Fisher. Perhaps we find the last category most puzzling, in an age when religion is seen as a purely private matter. Yet persecution of a different form certainly occurs when people publicly express opinions that are out of step with certain fashionable orthodoxies, and find themselves, not martyred (in the West at least) but effectively silenced and excluded from discourse. 

More and Fisher were martyrs not only for truth, but also for conscience, and for freedom. Many people today are uncomfortable with the idea of objective truth, a reality that they must accept and conform to, rather than invent for themselves. If truth is considered subjective and relative, conscience is even more so. And being subjective, these things must be kept private, so as not to intrude on the freedom of others, including the freedom not to be challenged by differing points of view: that is the way many people seem to think today. However the Christian faith is one that cannot simply be privatised. It is not just a question of proclaiming Christ to the world, which is indeed the heart of the church’s mission, but even more a matter of simply living out our faith and putting into practice the values of the gospel. If the highest of these values is love, we should remember that love sometimes requires us to speak up for the good of others, rather than simply keep quiet.

Father did not directly refer to it, but his words prompted me to think about one of the "fashionable orthodoxies" of our day, namely, the widespread acceptance of ideas of LGBTQ identities. Public conversation has to all intents and purposes replaced talk of biological sex with talk of gender, a somewhat less exact concept (though, interestingly, when Matthew Paris argued recently in the Times newspaper that the experience of gay men in 1989 was not one of wanting to change in any way their identification as male, he appeared to restore, at least for some within the LGBTQ community, biological sex to contemporary debate). The term "gender assigned at birth", for example, is being promoted as an alternative to biological sex.

.... gender isn’t about someone’s anatomy, it is about who they know them self to be. There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these.

When I read this extract from a website aimed at teenagers (a site called teen talk, with a .ca domain name), I did wonder: are young people being subject to an ideology that essentially says to them "you can choose from a list" as far as "gender" is concerned, rather than learning to grow in a given biological sex, male or female? Is it really sensible to ask young people to, in effect, choose "who they know them self to be", rather than helping them to grow in living the reality of a male or female sex? 

[I was struck on first reading this extract by the last part: "... and all, none or a combination of these". It really does suggest the idea of gender as being something that a young person can make up, separated from any reality of their biological presentation. Indeed, the next paragraph begins: "There are many more gender identities than we have listed..."]

Ms Lovato is non-binary

The BBC news website has reported that Demi Lovato is non-binary and is changing pronouns to they/them. Their report includes this observation:

Many fans have said they're "proud" of Demi's announcement, with some describing the singer as a "role model".

Another comment in the report quotes a fan of Demi Lovato as now feeling able to speak about their gender identity to their parents in a way that they had not felt able to do before.

I do wonder, though, whether there are other narratives that are not being reported - of young people who would otherwise happily have a certainty in a conventional gender identity as they experience puberty but who now feel that they should question that certainty; not because they are in themselves uncertain, but because the surrounding culture is telling them that they should be uncertain.

Interestingly, the report is being carried in the Newsbeat section of the BBC site, part of BBC news  programming (for Radio 1 and Radio 1 Extra) aimed at younger listeners  and particularly carrying news relating to entertainment and social media.

My first thought is one that I have expressed before on this blog. There is a common courtesy in addressing another person in the manner in which they wish to be addressed, and this represents a respect for their person, precisely as person. This would certainly apply to someone who was a work colleague, for example, and would stand alongside such a simple thing as someone like myself having a preference for being addressed as "Joe" or "Joseph". 

But Ms Lovato's very public announcement, and widespread media following, provide an added complication to this principle. From the point of view of Ms Lovato, is there an intention in making the announcement that those who adopt the use of the preferred pronouns, particularly in the media, are in effect being asked to consent in the public domain to an underlying ideology of gender? Is there, not just an announcement of a personal decision, but an intention to promote for acceptance in wider society a particular ideology of gender? Whilst Ms Lovato is due the respect of my using her preferred pronouns as a question of respect for her person, at what point does that also become an expression of belief on my part in a notion of gender fluidity to which I do not subscribe (and therefore come into conflict with my own conscientiously held belief)?

Too often the term gender is conflated with that of biological sex, to the extent that the part to be played by biological sex is disregarded in discussions of gender identity. If gender can be considered as being determined by social conventions and roles, biological sex is not - it is determined by the physiology of a human body. So, whilst I might accept non-binary as being Ms Lovato's identification in terms of gender, I would still wish to say that she is a person of the female sex.

Once the question of biological sex is included in the conversation, we can then ask if  the pronouns that are used of people should, objectively speaking, follow their identified gender or follow their biological sex - the question cannot, of course, be asked if gender and sex are conflated together. The usage of language by the vast majority, if we are honest about it, is that pronouns follow from the biological sex of people; and for those who do not subscribe to gender ideology this is of added significance. If we wish to adopt a use of language that is consistent with this, we should still be able to use female pronouns to refer to Ms Lovato without that being seen as disrespectful towards her or towards others who identify as non-binary at the level of gender. Rather it is a recognition by us of her female sex and not an adverse comment about her identified gender; a statement about what we believe rather than an attack on Ms Lovato.

"War of words risks wiping women from our language"

 ... is the title of the Weekend Essay in the London Times newspaper for Saturday 23 January. In this piece, Janice Turner argues that the language of biological sex should be retained rather than being entirely replaced by a language of "gender" and gender neutral terms such as "parent", or even "birthing parent" to replace "mother".

The article starts by citing a ruling by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, which removed terms such as "mother", "father", "daughter", "brother" and other gendered words from the House rules, and replaced them with gender neutral terms such as "parent", "child" or "sibling". It then refers to an executive order of President Biden that extended a Supreme Court ruling referring to discrimination "because of sex" so that its provision also apply on the basis of gender identity.

What Ms Turner points out as a consequence of this is that

... with zero debate or legislative scrutiny, biological sex as a discrete political and legal concept has gone.

One might also add that, without a language to describe those distinctive relationships within a family between a father and daughter, father and son, mother and daughter, the specific dynamics of these different relationships will over time be erased from everyday experience.

At one point in her article, Ms Turner recognises a denial of science in the idea that an understanding of a person's gender, and access to facilities based on that gender, might contradict the plain sense of the biological sex of the person when that is opposite to their identified gender. Whilst one can recognise that a person can have a deeply felt internal sense that can be termed "gender", it does not make scientific sense to assimilate this, to a greater or lesser extent subjective, sense of self to the objective physiology of a human body that is termed "sex". Towards the end of her article, Ms Turner characterises it like this:

No semantic shifts can change what ordinary people see: activists who deny biology sound like flat-earthers...

The bulk of Ms Turner's article describes how, firstly, the abolition of the idea of biological sex denies significant areas of women's experience of life: menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, birth. It cites the words of J K Rowling's tweet, which led to her vilification:

If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.

Secondly, it describes how the resulting use of language as it filters down through commerce, charities, health care providers, and public bodies, acts predominantly to the disadvantage of women and not to the disadvantage of men. In some respects it can undermine efforts to address maternal mortality, for example, if data is recorded against gender identification rather than biological sex. 

Ms Turner is not by any means "on the side of the angels", but her reference to the divide between trans rights activists and feminists contains a truth that can be applied more generally for those who would oppose what Pope Francis terms an "ideological colonisation" of the family, namely the necessity of maintaining a conversation about biological sexual difference and complementarity:

There is no need for this rancorous divide between trans activists and feminists. Yet peace depends upon an agreement that sex exists, that in certain limited circumstances it overrides gender, and that language to describe biological reality is valid.

[As an aside, in a way that I suspect was not intended by the writer, the following part of Janice Turner's article might provide a jumping off point for a wider discussion of the part that a father of an unborn child might play in a decision for abortion on the part of a woman:

...if reproductive rights are no longer women's rights but people's rights, "a woman's right to choose" dissolves. It follows that "people" should determine the outcome of a pregnancy, including men.]

 

Pope Francis and same-sex unions

 Catholic teaching on same-sex unions - and, I would suggest, Pope Francis' attitude to them - have not changed despite the reporting of his remarks in a recent film. The BBC include some balanced commentary, but the London Evening Standard are suggesting a "major step forward" that appears unjustified.

Catholic teaching is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Pope Francis has been very clear in critiquing the "colonization of the family" by an ideology of gender, and in critiquing theories of gender that undermine the proper complementarity of the male and female sexes. He has also upheld the idea that marriage is rightly understood as being a vowed relationship between one man and one woman. No-one should be under any misapprehension about this.

I have added the italics in n.2358 in the quotation above because, so far as I can tease it out from the media reporting, Pope Francis' remarks on same sex unions in the film are addressed to particular circumstances for which he articulates the principle of non-discrimination. He does not appear to me to be seeking to change Catholic teaching, or the perception of Catholic teaching.

There is, for example, no moral approval intended of the same sex relationship between the two people contained in the encouragement that they and the children they are bringing up should attend Mass. Applied to the particular circumstances, this appears to me nothing other than "accepting with respect, compassion and sensitivity". The observation that people "have a right to a family" appears to me to address two possible situations: firstly, where children are being brought up by a same-sex couple, where it represents a statement of the care due to those children whoever might provide it; and secondly, to a situation where a member of a family identifies as LGBT and might at that point be cast out from their family as a result. In both cases we again have an articulation of the principle of non-discrimination applied to a specific instance, and, in addition, a thought provoking suggestion as to how Catholic families might prepare to respond should such an instance occur in their own family or extended circle.

The difficulty with expressing support for legislation for civil unions for same-sex couples is that those unions can be perceived as a form of same-sex marriage in all but name (and, as has now happened, represent just a stepping stone on the way to further legal provision that does equate same-sex unions with opposite sex marriage). They can be perceived as an acceptance of the moral legitimacy of such relationships. However, there is some justice in making provision for same-sex couples who may have lived a shared common life over many years to have similar protections over their goods and property that a married opposite sex couple would have - but, of course, this does not have to be linked to the sexual aspect of their shared life. Such provision can be framed for any people who have lived such a shared common life, of which same-sex couples would be one example. In speaking out for a legal provision for civil unions, Pope Francis is again attempting (perhaps in a way that lacks precision) to articulate the principle of non-discrimination.

Mark Lambert has some very useful additional comment on the question of Pope Francis' words about  the "right to a family" and about civil unions here: No, no he didn't actually ..

As the BBC commentary observes, there is no indication what so ever that a change in the substantive position of the Catholic Church on this subject is likely, and media coverage that suggests a "major step forward" is not helpful either to expectations in the Church at large or to the expectations of the LGBT community.

Reflecting on Gay Britannia

The BBC is currently in the middle of broadcasting a wide range of programmes, on both television and radio, under the branding "Gay Britannia". The programming marks the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 "which partially decriminalised gay sex" according to the web page just linked or, as a trailer I heard on Radio 2 yesterday expressed it, "legalised gay sex". The distinction is not trivial, as an observation below will show.

I am struck by the willingness of the BBC's web page to use the terms "gay" and "queer" in their titles/strap lines for programmes. That they have not been more consistent in the use of what, so far as I can tell, is the current more "correct" terminology of LGBT (or LGBTQ+) suggests some recognition of the unusual in the subject matter of their programming.

The strap line for the two Radio 2 programmes Born this Way reads as follows:

Andrew Scott presents the remarkable story of how gay people transformed pop culture.

Which is interesting in its recognition of something implicit in the whole of the Gay Britannia programming: that the movement in favour of LGBTQ+ equality represents a wholesale alteration of our public culture, and not just a movement in favour of equality. This creates a bit of a catch-22 for Catholics who, on the one hand would wish to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ persons precisely as persons (and not because of their LGBTQ+ characteristics) who therefore have the same inalienable human rights as each and every other person, but on the other hand would wish to oppose a transformation of culture that embeds the LGBTQ+ characteristic as normative.

The BBC Gay Britannia programming indicates how much the culture of media and entertainment has been the subject of this cultural transformation. But that transformation now reaches into many other areas of society via an assimilation of a genuine concern for the rights of LGBTQ+ persons to a cultural transformation that, on the part of most people, is quite inadvertent and unrecognised.

It would be naïve to think that this does not have its effect on Catholics, who, in the workplace and elsewhere, will find it difficult to maintain a resistance to a cultural transformation they do not support whilst at the same time acknowledging the rights as persons of those who live according to a lifestyle that is different than their own.

In this context, it is worthwhile for Catholics to recall some considerations of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and to measure our current experience against them. The considerations refer to an earlier letter from the Congregation on the pastoral care of homosexual persons. The considerations are limited to considerations of sexual orientation (they were published as long ago as 1992), though they nevertheless do have some application to the wider LGBTQ+ context.

6. “She (the Church) is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to or as acceptable as the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society's understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy” (no. 9).

7. “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

13. Including “homosexual orientation” among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices. This is all the more deleterious since there is no right to homo-sexuality (cf. no. 10) which therefore should not form the basis for judicial claims. The passage from the recognition of homosexuality as a factor on which basis it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead, if not automatically, to the legislative protection and promotion of homosexuality. A person's homosexuality would be invoked in opposition to alleged discrimination, and thus the exercise of rights would be defended precisely via the affirmation of the homosexual condition instead of in terms of a violation of basic human rights.

14. ...Homosexual persons who assert their homosexuality tend to be precisely those who judge homosexual behavior or lifestyle to be “either completely harmless, if not an entirely good thing” (cf. no. 3), and hence worthy of public approval. It is from this quarter that one is more likely to find those who seek to “manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil statutes and laws” (cf. no. 5), those who use the tactic of protesting that “any and all criticism of or reservations about homosexual people... are simply diverse forms of unjust discrimination” (cf. no. 9). 

[The observation at n.13 is pertinent to the distinction between "partially decriminalising" and "legalising" noted at the top of this post.]

To update these considerations, we should make reference to Pope Francis' repeated condemnations of "gender theory", which he has termed an "ideological colonisation of the family". That we are made as persons who are either male or female in their physiology is a matter of the creative wisdom of God, and to promote the notion that it is we who can decide our own gender and change it if we wish - this Pope Francis identifies as being opposed to God's creative act. It is an ideology because it wishes to alter reality, rather than to recognise and explore reality. The abolition of the word "sex" to refer to male or female persons, and its almost universal replacement by the word "gender", is a sign of just how much, under the label of equality, an ideology of gender has already contributed to an alteration of culture.

Gender ideology harms children

The April 2016 Bulletin of the Family Education Trust has drawn my attention to a statement published on the website of the American College of Pediatricians, with the title "Gender Ideology Harms Children". A full statement is due to be published by the College later this year.

Before continuing with this post, please read the statement Gender Ideology Harms Children as I am not going to repeat it here. I add below my own observations, using the numbering of the paragraphs of the statement.

1-2. It appears to me to be the competence of the physiological/biological/chemical/physical sciences to arrive at the conclusion drawn by the American College of Pediatricians in n.1: "The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species." The competence of sociology, referred to in n.2 with regard to the idea of "gender", does not extend to the sphere of human physiology. A discussion of gender should not displace or deny the physiological reality of sex (as it does, rather dishonestly, in much public discussion, by maintaining a silence on the real distinction between the two concepts).

2-3. These paragraphs appear, to me at least, to require some reflection on the relationship between a person's biological sex and their experienced gender. Whilst this reflection has its sociological and psychological dimensions about which I am not competent to speak, it also has a philosophical dimension. It strikes me that the account of the reality of this relationship, and the way in which that relationship should be supported to achieve outcomes that are in the interests of the health and well being of the persons involved, asks for an appropriate integration of the person's identifying gender with their physiological body. It is undermined by allowing the one level of human acting (the sociological/psychological) to override the other (the physiological). And yet it is precisely this overriding that the promotion of gender ideology seeks to bring about. Karol Wojtyla, for example, in The Acting Person, includes in his discussion of the integration of the person in their acting an account of the part played by the bodily dimension of human activity in that integration (cf Chapter 5):

The integrity of the man-person consists therefore in the normal, indeed, in the possibly perfect matching of "somatic subjectivity" with the efficacious and transcendent subjectivity of the person. Such integrity is the condition of the person's integrity in the action. Any defects in this respect are a threat to man's unity and may lead to his disintegration; that which is like the body's own subjectivity, the reactive and vegetative subjectivity of the body, is then out of tune with the person as the efficacious subject. We may say that it breaks out from the control of the person and gains a disadvantageous "independence". We then observe a kind of abnormality, something that seems contrary to nature; for it appears natural for the reactive and vegetative subjectivity of the body to be in tune with the person, the efficacious subject who is conscious of himself - at least in the sense in which such harmony corresponds to the human nature of the person.

None of this is to suggest that those experiencing gender dysphoria should be the subject of stigmatization or of discriminatory behaviour. It is, however, to offer a challenge to a surrounding ideology which might determine treatments, rather than it being good medicine that determines those treatments.

5. The importance of the figures cited here - even if we take the figures that are at the upper end of the cited ranges and therefore most favourable to those who wish to promote gender ideology - lies in challenging what I think of as the idea of a "single narrative". Testimonies from women who experience a decision with regard to abortion (and I have a book authored by a writer seeking to support women seeking legally available abortion containing such testimonies) indicate that the narrative of "making my own free choice" is only one narrative among many. And yet, in public debate, the right to make that choice is often presented as the one narrative, though the reality for many women reflects a different narrative. Likewise, the figures cited here with regard to young people experiencing gender dysphoria suggest that the narrative of the public debate - that is, the narrative of legitimising the suppression of puberty in preparation for sex change surgery - is offering a single narrative when the reality of the individual young people involved would appear to reflect a range of narratives that may well not be best served by such a presumption.

Pope Francis' observations in Laetitia Amoris n.56 are prescient in this context:

Yet another challenge is posed by the various forms of an ideology of gender that “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. This ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female. Consequently, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time”. It is a source of concern that some ideologies of this sort, which seek to respond to what are at times understandable aspirations, manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised. It needs to be emphasized that “biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated”. On the other hand, “the technological revolution in the field of human procreation has introduced the ability to manipulate the reproductive act, making it independent of the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. In this way, human life and parenthood have become modular and separable realities, subject mainly to the wishes of individuals or couples”. It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality.