On his second and final day in Georgia before heading to Azerbaijan, Pope Francis on Saturday said he sees a “global war” against marriage in the form of the “theory of gender,” which he said seeks to destroy the family not with weapons but with ideas.<\/span><\/h5>\nTBILISI, Georgia – Pope Francis said on Saturday that there\u2019s a global war trying to destroy marriage, an institution which he described as God\u2019s most beautiful creation.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great enemy of marriage today is the theory of gender,\u201d Francis told a group of religious men and women and pastoral agents in Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, there is a global war trying to destroy marriage\u2026 they don\u2019t destroy it with weapons, but with ideas. It\u2019s certain ideological ways of thinking that are destroying it\u2026we have to defend ourselves from ideological colonization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The pontiff was talking off the cuff, after taking down notes on the four questions posed to him by a priest, a seminarian, a married woman, and a young man.<\/p>\n
The encounter lasted over an hour, with Francis speaking\u00a0in Italian with\u00a0an interpreter doing live translation into Georgian for some 250 people, including priests, religious, and seminarians, plus 140 representatives of lay pastoral councils.<\/p>\n
Irina, mother of two children, had spoken about the challenges both Catholic and Orthodox families face in Georgia, such as globalization, which \u201cdoesn\u2019t take into consideration the local values, the new views of sexuality as gender theory, and the marginalization of the Christian vision of life, particularly on our choice of educating our children as Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis has often spoken about ideological colonization and gender theory. The first refers to developed countries- or the West- imposing ideas into developing nations, often by putting a tag on economic aid.<\/p>\n
Gender theory or ideology instead refers to the idea that \u201csex\u201d is what a person is biologically, determined by a configuration of chromosomes, hormones, reproductive units, and internal and external anatomy. Gender is what the person believes himself or herself to be.<\/p>\n
Gender theorists say that people should be able to identify as male, female, in-between, neither or both, and discourage the stereotypical gender-based divisions, such as dolls for girls and trucks for boys.<\/p>\n
She also had spoken with Francis about the challenge the Catholic community faces seeing that divorce is readily available for the Georgian Orthodox while not for Catholics, with many parents seeing separation as the easiest way out of a hard situation.<\/p>\n
The pope answered saying that the Bible teaches God created man and woman in his image, thus it\u2019s \u201cwhen the two become one that his image is reflected.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that even though he understands that when things become difficult, or there are \u201ctemptations,\u201d things are resolved through the road of divorce. \u201cYou find someone, I find someone, and we\u2019ll both begin again. Who pays? Both, but more, God pays! Because God is the one who made them one, and when they divorce they dirty what God has made.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pontiff insisted that children also suffer tremendously from the breakdown of a marriage, including watching their parents fight.<\/p>\n
As he\u2019s said many times before, the pope said that fighting within a marriage is normal, and that sometimes even plates fly. His advice was for spouses to fight as much as needed, but always to resolve issues before going to bed, to prevent \u201cthe cold war\u201d of the morning after.<\/p>\n
Francis also said that sometimes \u201cthe devil enters and puts another woman in front of the man who seems more beautiful, or a man in front of the woman who\u2019s better than her husband. Ask for help immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then gave the Church four words to help couples save a marriage: \u201cWelcoming, accompanying, discerning and integrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
A seminarian had asked Francis about ecumenism, meaning inter-Christian dialogue. The pope answered saying that the abstract study of ecumenism should be left to theologians, while Catholics should instead focus\u00a0 on being friends with their Orthodox neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe open, be a friend. \u2018But I must do everything to convert them!\u2019 There\u2019s a great sin against ecumenism: proselytism,\u201d he said, adding that they\u2019re \u201cour brothers and sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ecumenism, he said, is being friends, walking together, doing charitable work together and praying for each other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Pope calls gender theory a \u2018global war\u2019 against the family source: https:\/\/cruxnow.com\/global-church\/2016\/10\/01\/pope-calls-gender-theory-global-war-family\/ Pope Francis kisses a crucifix as he arrives for a meeting with priests [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2508,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions\/2508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumniforacatholicusd.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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