"the construct of 'gender' is the ultimate 'morning-after' pill because it hides all the tell-tale signs of our being 'whence and whither.'"

Pontifical John Paul II Institute, Washington, DC

     Margaret H. McCarthy, "The emperor’s (new) new clothes:  the logic of the new 'gender ideology,'" Communio:  international Catholic review 46, no. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2019):  647 (620-659).

Christians today "are the lonely custodians of realities that are not technically speaking matters of faith, even as they are dismissed as [such]."

Pontifical John Paul Institute of Washington, DC

"We should not fail to notice the unique situation that Christians are in today:  they are the lonely custodians of realities that are not technically speaking matters of faith, even as they are dismissed as 'matters of faith.'  Chesterton described this unique situation over a century ago.

Everything will be denied.  Everything will become a creed.  It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them.  It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake.  Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four.  Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.  We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face.  We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible.  We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage.  We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed."

     Margaret H. McCarthy, quoting Heretics (1905), 305, in "The emperor’s (new) new clothes:  the logic of the new 'gender ideology,'" Communio:  international Catholic review 46, no. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2019):  658 (620-659).

"a more basic distinction, prior to cultural variety"

Pontifical John Paul II Institute of Washington, DC

"I do not dispute that there is a distinction between [1] the fact of being sexually distinct (a boy or a girl, a man or a woman) and [2] 'living that difference out in a variety of cultures.'  But there is a more basic distinction, prior to cultural variety.  It is between [1] being one sex or the other (a boy or girl) and [2] growing up to become a man or a woman, which involves both [2a] the person 'living out' what he or she already is and [2b] those helping to raise him or her (parents, society, culture).  If we begin there, and not immediately with cultural variety, we allow ourselves to speak positively about the necessary role a culture has in forming a boy or a girl to maturity as a man or a woman. . . .  We extricate ourselves, in other words, from the agenda that originally inspired the search for cultural variety (beginning with Margaret Mead) to show how cultural 'expectations' are per se imposed externally in the arbitrary sense, according to the 'social construct' model belonging to the nature-nurture dualism.  Furthermore, in my view, the distinction as stated draws too sharp a distinction between [1] the biological and [2] the living out of sexual difference.  By using the modifier 'biological' for 'sex,' the terms are prey to the implication, however unintended, that 'living out' or 'expression' is not biological, and conversely, that 'sex,' or 'bodily, biological reality' is not always already socially embedded and in need of formation and personal 'living out.'  But that, of course, is not the case.  It is the one human organism (body and soul) that both is and then acts.  Think, for example[,] of the nursing of a child or the education of children and the making of a home, all of which are indivisibly human acts.  Think, too, of the fact that the human child is born 'too early,' and in need of the 'social uterus' of the family.  Perhaps the problem that the above distinctions are prey to arises from the preference for the use of 'biological' over 'natural,' the former being an abstraction of the latter.  As Karol Wojtyła said, 'The expression "order of nature" cannot be confused nor identified with the expression "biological order," as the latter, even though also signifying the order of nature, denotes it only inasmuch as it is accessible for the empirical-descriptive methods of natural sciences' (Love and Responsibility, trans. Grzegorz Ignatik [Boston:  Pauline Books and Media, 2013], 40).  In sum, by choosing the more abstract term, it is very difficult, especially in current circumstances given the history of the invention of the 'sex and gender' dyad, to designate the whole human organism who is male or female and then grows up to become a man or woman (quite apart from the actual intentions to the contrary of those using the modifier).  Finally, by using the 'sex and gender' pair . . . to indicate a proper distinction is to imagine, naively in my view, that anyone today is able to detect in the pair anything other than the dualisms the distinction has always existed to create and perpetuate."

     Margaret H. McCarthy, "The emperor’s (new) new clothes:  the logic of the new 'gender ideology,'" Communio:  international Catholic review 46, no. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2019):  629n24, underscoring mine (620-659).  630n26:  "it would not be correct to refer to me as having a 'sound theory of gender,' as I do not recognize 'gender' as a thing distinct from sex."

A second perfection consisting in operation, not form

Commissio Leonina

"'There was matrimony in Paradise, and yet there was no carnal intercourse. Therefore carnal intercourse is not an integral part of matrimony' (In IV Sent. d. 26, q. 2, a. 4, sed c. 1; Summa theol., Supplementum, q. 42, a. 4, sed c. 1).  According to Aquinas, it is wrong [(ne faut pas)] to take from [Gen 1:27] and similar texts the liberty of affirming that sexuality—masculinity and femininity—enters into what constitutes man in the image of God.  Such an idea is contrary to the very notion of theology according to Aquinas, which consists in bringing to bear upon both creation and man the very regard of God, [and doing so] from God, namely from revelation and the gift of faith.  By contrast, the idea of seeing in masculinity and femininity an element of the image of God in man comes from [1] bringing an exclusively human regard to bear on the human being and from [2] the confusion between the essence of man and his activity.  Thomas grounds the imago Dei in the spiritual nature of man, [in] the intelligence and the will [that] constitute him as man.  For in God there is an intelligence and a will, but not a body:  'God is spirit'. . . .  Moreover, the-image-of-God-that-man-is is an image to be perfected by virtuous and meritorious activity.  It is by his activity that man 'becomes' the image of God, and this means that [(et en cela)] the exercise of sexuality, as well as [that] of perfect continence, realizes this image.  Were masculinity and femininity to constitute for man an element of his being in the image of God, [then,] on the one hand, God would have to have a body, for the divine ideas of masculinity and femininity are not principle[s] of 'being in the image of,' for they are ideas, as Augustine put it so very well:  'it is there where there is no sex that man was made to the image of God, that is in the spirit of his mind' (De Trinitate XII.3.12).  [And,] on the other hand, all would have to exercise [their] sexuality in order to perfect this image, with the absurd consequence that those who live in perfect continence would never realize it."

     Adriano Oliva, O.P., "Essence et finalité du marriage selon Thomas d'Aquin pour un soin pastoral renouvelé," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 98, no. 4 (2014):  604n11 (601-668), translation mine.

He "who does not resolve the doubt" he "instills" is a false prophet

     "We find some people who study philosophy and say some things that are not true according to the faith.  And when someone tells them that this is opposed to the faith, they answer that the Philosopher says this, but that they themselves do not maintain this; yes, that they only repeat the words of the Philosopher.  Such is a false prophet, or a false teacher, because causing doubt and not solving it is the same as giving way to it.  This is signified in Ex 21:33-34, where it says that 'if someone digs a pit and opens the cistern without covering it over,' and a cow belonging to his neighbor comes and falls into the cistern, he who left the cistern open is bound to pay him restitution.  Someone who causes doubt about these things that regard the faith, opens the cistern.  Someone who does not solve the doubt, although he has a sound and bright intellect and is not deceived, is the one who does not cover over the cistern.  Still, someone else, who does not have such a bright intellect, may well be deceived, and then the one who causes the doubt is bound to restitution, since because of him that person fell into the pit."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Sermon 14 on the Attendite a falsis prophetis (Mt 7:15-16) 2.1.2.1 (22), 26 July 1271, trans. Mark-Robin Hoogland, C.P. (Thomas Aquinas:  the academic sermons, FCMC 11 (Washington, DC:  The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 292).  Trans. Athanasius Sulavik:

"others, who study philosophy and advance some things which are not true according to the faith, who when told that this is repugnant to the faith, respond by saying that they themselves do not assert this, but rather they are only repeating the words of the Philosopher. Such a person is a false prophet or a false teacher, for it is the same thing to instill doubt and not to resolve it, as it is to affirm the doubt. This point is illustrated in Exodus where it says that if anyone digs a well and opens the pit and does not cover it, and if their neighbor's ox comes along and falls into the pit, the person who opened the pit is held accountable for its restitution. That person who instills doubt about those things which belong to faith opens a pit; he does not cover the pit who does not resolve the doubt, even though he himself possesses sound and clear understanding and is not deceived. Nonetheless the other person who does not possess such clear understanding is truly deceived, and so that man who instilled the doubt is held accountable for restitution, since it was through him that the other man fell into the pit."

Latin from Sulavik:

"aliqui qui student in philosophia, et dicunt aliqua quae non sunt vera secundum fidem; et cum dicitur eis quod hoc repugnat fidei, dicunt quod philosophus dicit hoc, sed ipsi non asserunt: imo solum recitant verba philosophi. Talis est falsus propheta, sive falsus doctor, quia idem est dubitationem movere et eam non solvere quod eam concedere; quod signatur in Exod. 21, 33, 34, ubi dicitur quod si aliquis foderit puteum, et aperuerit cisternam, et non cooperuerit eam, veniat bos vicini sui, et cadat in cisternam, ille qui aperuerit cisternam teneatur ad ejus restitutionem. Ille cisternam aperuit, qui dubitationem movet de his quae faciunt ad fidem. Cisternam non cooperit, qui dubitationem non solvit, etsi habeat intellectum sanum et limpidum, et non decipiatur. Alter tamen qui intellectum non habet ita limpidum bene decipitur, et ille qui dubitationem movit tenetur ad restitutionem, quia per eum ille cecidit in foveam."

Latin from Corpus Thomisticum.

Trust the saints on what you haven't yourself experienced

"Although the tri-hypostatic nature of the Godhead—that is in no way destroyed by the principle of unity—was in later times revealed to the ends of the earth, it was also fully known to the prophets prior to the fulfillment of the things prophesied and was readily accepted by those who trusted in them.  In the same manner, even at this present time we are not ignorant of the doctrines of the Christian confession, both those which are openly proclaimed and those which are mystically and prophetically revealed by the Spirit to such as are accounted worthy.  These are persons who have been initiated by actual experience, who have renounced possessions, human glory and the ugly pleasures of the body for the sake of the evangelical life; and not only this, but they have also strengthened their renunciation by submitting themselves to those who have attained spiritual maturity in Christ.  Through the practice of the life of stillness they devote their attention undistractedly to themselves and to God, and by transcending themselves through sincere prayer and by establishing themselves in God through their mystical and supra-intellectual union with Him they have been initiated into what surpasses the intellect.  Others again have learnt about these things through their reverence, faith and love for such persons.

"If, then, anyone condemns as Messalians those who declare this deifying grace of God to be uncreated, ungenerated and completely real, and calls them ditheists, he must know . . . that he is an adversary of the saints of God. . . .  But if anyone believes, is persuaded by and concurs with the saints and does not 'make excuses to justify sin' [(Ps 141:4 LXX)], and if although ignorant of the manner of the mystery he does not because of his ignorance reject what is clearly proclaimed, let him not refuse to enquire and learn from those who do possess knowledge."

     Gregory of Palamas, “Declaration of the Holy Mountain in defence of those who devoutly practice a life of stillness” Prologue and 1 (=Triads I.ii?), in Philokalia:  the complete text, translated from the Greek and edited by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, vol. 4 (London:  Faber & Faber, 1995), 418-420.

"the twofold perfection which is required of the student of [the science of mystical theology]"

     "The sort of people to whom this kind of teaching ['which is entitled Mystical Theology'] is meant to be addressed is alluded to in the word 'Israel,' which means 'very straight' and 'a man who sees God.'  This reveals the twofold perfection which is required of the student of this science:  clarity of understanding in order to see God and right behavior in practice, which is how we come to such clarity or sharpness of understanding [(limpiditas ad videndum Deum, et rectitudo operis, per quam ad dictam limpiditatem vel acumen devenitur)]."

     St. Albert the Great, Commentary on Dionysius' Mystical theology, chap. 1 (Albert & Thomas:  selected writings, translated, edited, and introduced by Simon Tugwell, O.P. (New York, NY, and Mahwah, NJ:  Paulist Press, 1988), 135).  I was put onto this by Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., who quotes it at the beginning of his lecture "Albertus Magnus on contemplative ascent to God," Renewing Mystical Theology: The Link Between Theological Doctrine and Spiritual Practice in Medieval Spiritualities, Thomistic Institute, Angelicum, Rome, 26 February 2021.  Fr. Blankenhorn's concluding comments are eminently quote-worthy as well.  Latin from p. 812 of vol. 14 of the Borgnet edition of 1892, i.e not vol. 37.2 of the Editio Coloniensis.