VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 26, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Catholic Church does not condemn feminism in its entirety, only those currents that have adopted the gender ideology to discredit the fundamental role of the family, says the review Civilta Cattolica.
«The Church does not condemn feminism as a whole, because it recognizes that, despite its errors and exaggerations, it has brought about the recognition of the dignity of woman and her equality with man,» says the bimonthly Roman journal of the Society of Jesus.
The publication ran a commentary on the «Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Man and Woman in the Church and in the World.» The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published the letter July 31.
This equality of man and woman «despite their sexual and psychological diversity» must overcome «unjust discriminations,» the review insists.
At the same time, the article warns against the gender ideology that «is particularly dangerous because it questions the family,» the article states.
The objective of gender ideology is to surmount the alleged «biological determinism» imposed by sexual orientation, making «gender» a simple personal option and attributing to any type of life together the status of family, such as, for example, homosexual marriage.
«Today the family is attacked from all sides. This explains why the Church intervenes so frequently in its defense,» it continues.
What the Church criticizes today in the gender ideology is its threat to the family, either “by de facto unions, or by the spread of homosexual practices.»
The 10-page article gives the Church’s view on the feminist movement, valuing those aspects that can be considered historical achievements. «It is important to underline strongly that in the Church of the second half of the 20th century not only were many errors of the past about feminine nature, the tasks of woman, and her subordination to man corrected, but the feminine question has been profoundly reexamined,» the journal points out.
After reviewing the magisterium of different Popes on woman, the article states that «it was John Paul II who gave the Church the fullest appreciation of woman,» highlighting her «equal dignity to that of man.»
