✣ Highlights from the week online
The Church looks at ‘gender theory’ At Crux, John Allen asked what Pope Francis means when he discusses “gender theory”, and how the Vatican might tackle the question. Put simply, Allen wrote, “gender theory” refers to “theories which posit that male/female identities are not given in nature but rather socially and culturally constructed, and therefore can be revised based on one’s personal desires”. These theories, Francis has suggested, could damage the essential nature of the family. Given the Pope’s warnings, it’s little surprise that Rome’s Santa Croce university last week hosted a conference which included a paper on gender theory. The paper, by canon lawyer Vincenzo Turchi, described gender theory as seeing sexual differences as “inessential and changeable”. Turchi also expressed concerns about how schools in Europe are teaching gender theory to children. In the end, Allen said, the discussion will have to engage with those who are sympathetic to some of the principles behind gender theory. Christ had many more than five wounds The “Five Wounds of Christ” is a common phrase. But “Christ was flogged, beaten, crowned with thorns, and carried his cross in addition to the Crucifixion itself”, an editor at ChurchPop.com pointed out. Therefore, the total number of wounds suffered must be far greater. And, although it is only a private revelation, there is a mystical vision which indicates the total number. St Gertrude the Great, a 13th-century Benedictine nun in Germany, had a vision of Christ, who “revealed to her the number of wounds he received in total during his Passion: 5,466.” From then on St Gertrude “recited a certain prayer of praise to God 5,466 times per day”, to mark each wound accepted for our salvation. In another devotion, one can “recite a prayer 15 times a day for a year, or 5 days a day for three years, both which would result in saying the prayer 5,475 times” – just over the total. How assisted suicide expands over time At firstthings.com,Wesley J Smith went “behind the curtain of assisted suicide advocacy”. US campaigners claim that they want only a limited “reform” to help those who are suffering. But in reality they often advocate policies which would endanger other lives. A bill in Delaware, for instance, could allow lethal prescriptions for those who have – as the bill puts it – “significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behaviour”. Places which introduced assisted suicide have often “expanded their laws’ killable categories over the years” – notably in Belgium. Oregon is also considering removing some safeguards – for instance, that one must have less than six months to live. In these ways, “advocates sometimes give us glimpses of the more radical and extensive ultimate intentions behind their blithe assurances”.
