Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, met at the Vatican with a group of transgender individuals—men who identify as women—who he referred to as “daughters of God,” a statement that appears somewhat contradictory to his past statements on gender ideology.
The supreme Pontiff spoke about the meeting, and what he said could apply to any of a number of meetings, as he met with transgender people in Rome several times last year.
Speaking to the Spanish Catholic magazine Vida Nueva, Pope Francis recalled the meeting saying, “[t]hey left crying, saying that I had given them my hand, a kiss, as if I had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God,” Il Giornale reports.
Other publications have translated Pope Francis’ statement differently, including the online Catholic publication Crux Now, which states that Pope Francis said the transgender individuals were children of God, rather than daughters.
The translation by the news outlet seems unlikely, as the Spanish newspaper La Razon, quotes Pope Francis as saying the word “hijas”, which is Spanish for daughter.
The quote, which appears to show Pope Francis affirming the chosen gender of the transgender people, is somewhat contrary to past remarks Pope Francis has made on the subject of gender ideology and the phenomenon of transgenderism.
In 2016, Pope Francis released the encyclical “Amoris Laetitia,” which states:
[T]he young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created, for “thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation … An appreciation of our body as male or female is also necessary for our own self-awareness in an encounter with others different from ourselves. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment.” Only by losing the fear of being different, can we be freed of self-centredness and self-absorption. Sex education should help young people to accept their own bodies and to avoid the pretension “to cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it.”
Pope Francis has also been highly critical of gender ideology, calling it “ideological colonisation” in 2016.
“Today children—children!—are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. Why are they teaching this? Because the books are provided by the persons and institutions that give you money. These forms of ideological colonization are also supported by influential countries. And this [is] terrible!” Pope Francis said during a private meeting with Polish Bishops.
In an interview earlier this year, Pope Francis again criticised gender ideology saying, “Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” and added, “Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women.”
“All humanity is the tension of differences. It is to grow through the tension of differences. The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation,” he said.
The release of Pope Francis’s interview with Vida Nueva comes as young Catholics from across the globe have travelled to Lisbon, Portugal, this week for the annual World Youth Days events, which last until Sunday.
So far, Pope Francis has not mentioned gender ideology during the events but did tell people at a meeting in Lisbon this week,
We are all fragile and needy, but the gaze of compassion of the Gospel leads us to see the needs of those who are most in need. And to serve the poor, the beloved of God who became poor for us: the excluded, the marginalised, the discarded, the little ones, the defenceless. They are the treasure of the Church, they are God’s favourites.
