2024-03-25 04:40:26
Young priests during a mass in the Roman Santa Maria Church.Image: www.imago-images.de
Pope Francis was considered progressive when he took office. But those times are long gone. This is also reflected in the fact that the fight against “gender ideology” and “woke culture” is on the curriculum at the Pontifical University in Rome.
25.03.2024, 05:4025.03.2024, 06:45
A cruel war has been raging in Ukraine for more than two years. It is no exaggeration to describe the current conditions in the Gaza Strip as hell on earth. Climate change threatens millions of people. Democracy as a form of government is under increasing pressure. The list goes on and on with the conflicts and problems that humanity is currently facing.
But if Pope Francis has his way, then none of the points mentioned are the greatest current danger to humanity. For him, “gender ideology is the ugliest danger today,” the head of the Catholic Church announced at the beginning of March. The “ugly ideology of our time” would “obliterate differences (between men and women, editor) and thus humanity,” said the 87-year-old.
The Argentine, who has been in office since 2013, was considered progressive at the time and nurtured hopes for reforms in the conservative Catholic church structure, has long since said goodbye to his former image.
Our author wrote about it back in 2019:
What’s more, with his recent statements, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as his real name is, is at least partly in similar ideological territory as his late predecessor Benedict XVI, who was considered extremely conservative.
The fact that this conservatism will hardly ever disappear from the Vatican is also shown by the way young priests are trained in Rome. The fight against “gender ideology” and “woke culture” has long been on the curriculum there, as a visit by a Spiegel journalist to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome reveals. The Vatican has been training its young people at the Gregoriana for almost 500 years – and lectures that call for the fight against wokeness will be the subject of lectures in 2024.
A video shown to the students makes it clear what it is about. Gender-neutral toilets, surrogacy, homosexual parents, pride parades. And so forth. Woke concepts would cause confusion in the world, it says. These ideologies rejected the “God-given order.”
Speaker Michael Matheson Miller, American philosopher and political scientist with a clear Christian-conservative bent, explains to the aspiring priests the dangers of the woke agenda that already dominates universities and parts of society today.
«Many people are suffering. They are victims of the sexual revolution.”
Young people today are developing “sexually disturbed identities” because this corresponds to the spirit of the times. Wokeness is a “philosophy of despair” and would lead to the downfall of Christianity.
Matheson Miller cites numerous developments and perspectives that, in his view, are fatal for the world. They are diametrically opposed to the story of creation: for example, critics of growth who see humans as a problem for our planet and no longer want to reproduce. Or the complete commercialization of human characteristics.
“You can rent out your uterus, sell your sperm and purchase spirituality as an app.”
According to the lecturer, there is only one answer to these sinful developments: the Word of God, the Bible. He explains:
«The world is good. We are called to complete creation.”
The writings of former popes are also discussed and discussed in Rome, such as those of John Paul II and the aforementioned Benedict XVI, both of whom were considered extremely conservative – even by Catholic standards.
What is remarkable or, depending on your point of view, questionable is the congruence in content between the Roman Catholic anti-woke efforts and right-wing populist political movements around the globe: not only the Vatican, but also numerous people have long been committed to the anti-woke fight right-wing politicians. It cannot be denied that Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini – or even Vladimir Putin – have an ideological intersection with the anti-woken Vatican teachings.
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