catholicworldreport.com
2024-04-13
Today the crisis of the human person seems to be reaching a nadir. The apparent successes of efforts to promote confusion about sex and sex difference, which strike at the foundation of the human person, are central factors in our accelerating social decline. Indeed, at a recent audience Pope Francis declared ". . . today the ugliest danger is gender ideology." It seems there is nothing deeper, nothing more foundational left to attack.
Why do I make this claim? Let me explain. In an earlier CWR essay, I made the argument derived from St. John Paul II's anthropology, that the very core of every human being is his person and that this "who-ness" is a created analogy of divine Persons (see "A crisis of the human person: St John Paul II's remedy"). More specifically, I argued that a human person exists as a created relation. I also indicated that this category of being is necessary and helpful for a compelling account of sex difference.
In such an account, sex difference uniquely constitutes the person who can be a human person only as female or male.1 Sex difference defines the structure of love, that is, the hierarchical manner through which human persons relate to one another in love. It is only through authentic relationships of love that man finds his authentic meaning and achieves his fulfillment. So then, to get one's sex difference wrong will necessarily prevent the person from reaching his fulfillment.