Sexual Difference and the Catholic Tradition:Challenges and Resources1 John Grabowski In its penetrating analysis of the modern world, the introductory statement of Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, draws attention to a seeming paradox facing modern men and women. While scientific discoveries have unlocked mysteries of life and the cosmos and growing technological prowess has harnessed these discoveries to create stunning new possibilities in human life and culture, questions of the meaning of human life and existence have become ever more vexing and their answers even more elusive.2 [End Page 111] The human person is increasingly seen as a question without a clear answer. The fifty-plus years since of the close of the Council have underscored the truth and profundity of this anthropological analysis. And often it is our highest technical achievements which most confound and bemuse us. Communication technology has made the globe smaller, enabling instantaneous and face-to-face contact between persons from all corners of the world. Yet this very technology increasingly isolates those living under the same roof from one another.3 The "information superhighway" of the internet puts an unprecedented wealth of information at people's fingertips. Yet it also brings with it information overload, new possibilities for overt deception and "fake news," limitless possibilities for aimless distraction and even addiction,4 and a never-ending flood of content aimed at the basest expressions of the seven deadly sins.5 Social media platforms enhance communication and personal expression but also reinforce the idea that personal identity is self-created and malleable. Genetic modification of other organisms and the mapping of the human genome raise the question of whether similar procedures might be applied to genetically alter human beings. Improving medical technology increasingly blurs the line between therapy and "enhancement" of the human person.6 Pushed to [End Page 112] the limit, "enhancement" opens the door to the brave new world of trans-humanism in which the very identification of what counts as "human" is put in question.7 Nowhere is this confusion more pronounced than in understanding sexual difference. While "gender" used to be the common word for describing this difference because one did not say "sex" in polite company, under the impact of existentialist and postmodern strands of feminism it is now a highly technical term whose meaning continues to be ever more rarified through ongoing contention.8 This confusion is not simply a matter of academic debate. Some educational programs, in the effort to promote acceptance of transgender students, use concepts like "the gender bread person" or "the purple unicorn" to teach children that "gender" is a complex correlation of body awareness, (self-chosen) gender identity, gender expression, romantic attraction, and sexual attraction.9 Little wonder that social media platforms such as Facebook now recognize some seventy self-chosen "genders."10 People who "misgender" others by using pronouns other than those chosen by the individual are subject to not just [End Page 113] social ostracism but, in some cases, the threat of criminal prosecution.11 The Church has recognized some of the dangers posed by these intellectual and social currents, offering a series of critiques of "gender ideology" over the last few decades as well as diagnosing some of the roots of this view. Important as this critique and accompanying diagnoses are, there is more to be said. The Catholic theological tradition, nourished by Scripture, offers resources for a deep and positive portrayal of sexual difference and its meaning. This paper will argue that in biblical and theological concepts such as sexual complementarity, the spousal meaning of the body, and—as the Gaudium et Spes indicates–a Christological anthropology, Catholic theology has the resources to account for both the unity of the human race and the difference of male and female who are together the image of God (see Gen 1:27). The paper will proceed by first examining some of the recent critiques of gender ideology put forward by the Church. It will then point to some of the cultural and intellectual shifts that helped to generate this ideology. This will be followed by a brief...