A truly Catholic approach to “gender studies”

Though June is the month dedicated by many Catholics to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, post-Christians and “liberal” Christians have decided to promote “Pride Month,” a time of celebration and promotion of a very strange view of human beings that now goes by the initials LGBTQ. Or, in many cases, a much longer series of letters followed by a plus sign—LGBTQIAA+ is a current one. The letters stand for either sexual passions that are somehow determinative of the center of one’s identity or “gender identities,” which are claims to be something other than your own biological sex based on some sort of mysterious internal feeling.

It’s all both disturbing and very confusing, especially since there are both clerics and Catholic academics who promote this view of the world in which our status as the image of God, created male and female, is discounted as behind the times. Even more especially since so many legal, medical, and even spiritual authorities are now promoting sexual behavior that distorts our nature and even surgeries that mutilate healthy bodies in service of making men, women, and even kids look like the opposite sex. People talk about the medieval period as the “Dark Ages,” but despite the technological wonders we live in, our age is truly dark.

We know, too, that even those who haven’t fully embraced the whole of these destructive ideologies have often taken in a good bit of where they came from. Even when they haven’t forgotten what a woman is, proponents of many secular versions of “feminism” have promoted the idea that abortion and contraception are necessary for female health and flourishing. They have also told women that if they don’t prioritize career over family, they are traitors. And they have often made it clear that public policy that does not allow for and even promote these positions is “anti-woman.”

What can we do? While it’s tempting to simply lament the insanity and try to hide from it, that’s really not an option for most of us. We need answers for our children, to whom these messages are being promoted in many public (and, sadly, even some Catholic) schools. We need ways to respond to pressures to capitulate to demands made at our jobs and in public settings to affirm bad ideas or do things to promote them. And we need to figure out how to promote policies that will actually lead to flourishing for men and women.

We can certainly read and do our own research. There are many good resources being developed these days, including a good many books on how to think about our created nature from authors such as Ryan T. Anderson, Abigail Shrier, Abigail Favale, Carrie Gress, Erika Bachiochi, and many others. But many people will want to do more than read a book or even search some websites and watch videos. They will want to study with those who have studied and thought deeply about these issues, especially from a Catholic perspective.

So where can we do this? I’m very pleased that my own institution, the University of St. Thomas in Houston, has begun a new Master of Arts program in Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies. Those who are familiar with women’s studies and gender studies at most Catholic universities know that such programs are almost always exactly like what one can find at any other university. All of the same secular feminist and gender ideology claims are simply taken as givens, with little attention to the wisdom from Catholic teaching or the broader Catholic intellectual tradition.

UST in Houston’s program is different. As the website explains, this first-of-its-kind program is fully Catholic and “begins with a sound understanding of philosophical and theological anthropology—the nature of human personhood—from the depths of the Catholic intellectual tradition, including Scripture, writings of the saints, such as John Paul II’s ‘Theology of the Body,’ and noted contemporary Catholic philosophers and theologians.” Indeed, this is a program that doesn’t deny but focuses on “the importance of the physical body, the biological reality of sex, and the body’s role in revealing deep spiritual truths about human identity.”

But the MA in Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies is not simply going to be a philosophical and theological program to allow us to think about the issues more clearly. Its practical aim is to help people understand exactly what are “the effects secular feminist theories have had on women’s health care practices, law, education, family policy, and the culture at large.” Indeed, secular feminism and gender theories form “a multi-faceted international force affecting politics, religion, healthcare, and family structures.” Students in the program will study all these topics in order to “learn to cut through modern ideologies, to identify good arguments, and craft pastoral and policy strategies to promote the full flourishing of men, women, and children.”

The MA in Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies will be useful for almost anyone these days, but particularly those working in media, law, business, healthcare, education, non-profits, and various types of Church organizations. Faculty for the program include many well-known figures doing important work in thought and policy such as Favale, Deborah Savage, Bachiochi, and Franks.

The program will also be convenient for those living anywhere. Otherwise fully online, it will include a 5-day in-person symposium with faculty and students in January. While not everyone will be able to take on a full 30-credit-hour program, there are also options for studying parts of the question. Certificates in Catholic Feminism, Gender and Family Policy, Women’s Health and Wellness, and Sexuality and Gender are all available.

Catholics don’t have to simply curse the darkness of our mixed-up world. The light of Christ shines in Scripture and Tradition in such a way as to cut through that darkness and offer hope and sanity. God created us in his own image, male and female. We can learn how that is very good indeed—and help shape our world.

• For more information on the Master of Arts in Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies, go to www.stthom.edu and search for Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies or email program director Leah Jacobson at leah.jacobson@stthom.edu.

(Editor’s note: This article first appeared in The Catholic Servant.)