"Eternal Truth" and the "Anthropological Revolution"

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Military Archdiocese released an important statement following President Trump's ban on transgenders in the military. I've attended several Confirmations celebrated by Archbishop Broglio and am always edified by his witness. I feel the same way about this press release. It includes a major point about the nature of the human person. We would do well to take this seriously:

“The dignity of the human person is rooted in the fact that people are created in the image and likeness of God – God who in the fullness of his divinity assumed humanity to redeem the world. A recent conference, titled ‘Framing a Catholic Response to Gender Ideology’ held this past May at Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, noted that gender ideology undermines basic Christian anthropology by defining the person as a disembodied mind and the body as a mere instrument. A Catholic response to gender ideology considers multiple insights including medical, psychological, philosophical, theological, pastoral, and legal perspectives. The Church honors human dignity by drawing near in order to accompany people."

We are a temples of the Holy
Spirit. Let's act like it!

When I was growing up, it was common for Catholic parents and teachers to remind us that we are "temples of the Holy Spirit." An accurate metaphor, this reminds us that when a person dwells in the state of grace, his body becomes a temple or house of God Himself. But recall the scripture that tells us a house divided against itself cannot stand. A transgender person is at war with himself (I'm using the male pronouns generically), choosing to divide his soul from his body. Instead of being a unity of body and soul, the transgender divorces himself from the reality of his God-given image. Instead, he remakes himself into an image...of what? Transgender ideology is, at its root, a rejection of the doctrine of man being made in the image of God.

Pope Benedict addressed this in 2012 in his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia:

The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.

At the root of the attack on the family today is the attack on God Himself. And among the devil's greatest deceits is that to be happy we must deny our fundamental dignity of being made in God's image and likeness. Instead w must remake ourselves into what can only be described as ridiculous. Underneath all the transgender trappings: the piercings, the tattoos, the wigs, the outrageous costumes - are children of God made in His image and likeness who, because of distorted feelings about their identities, reject God's plan for them. In compassion let us pray for them.

And here's an interesting article on the Transgender Culture Wars. Since we are in the midst of it, we would do well to understand with what we are dealing!