Epicochus and gender, few and confused ideas

Reflections by Massimo Battaglio

Success almost always goes to your head, even for theologians. There is no other explanation for the blunders that, in recent months, the well-known television theologian and philosopher Don Luigi Maria Epicoco he said about women and gender.

Not that I understand theology. Indeed: I believe that this fashion of theology everywhere has something unhealthy, equal to that of liturgy and canon law.

I find it singular that so many of the latest generation priests, when they understand nothing about society, politics, everyday problems, proclaim themselves expert theologians, canonists and liturgists. And, faced with increasingly desolate oratories and increasingly smaller parish reception centers, they write books, participate in broadcasts, travel, distribute smiles.

Theology is useful, of course, but it is not the first of the virtues, which remains charity. Without theology, we would be ignorant Christians. But without charity, we would not be Christians.

In fact, one of the few things I know about theology is that it requires long studies to say a few words. And in fact, today's theological volcanics, forced by the media to keep up an unsustainable pace, are often reduced to saying banalities. Luigi Maria Epicopo himself is a champion in this, starting when he talks about his personal relationship with the Pope on “Che Tempo Che Fa”:

“A beautiful friendship was born” (long live humility). “Francis embodies the Gospel”. “He knows how to look at people.”

Or when, again urged by Fazio, he expresses his opinion on the refugee problem:

“The most terrible thing is all those who are refugees in their own history even if they are in their own home, in their own lives. They are drowning in an absurd sadness and don't realize it. These too must be saved. There are those who are hungry for justice and those who are hungry for meaning."

It's not easy to say: "I don't understand; It's too real a problem for me to bother dealing with"?

But what has our Luigi Maria said now that is so serious as to enrage first all the feminists, then the LGBT Christians and finally also the theologian Andrea Grillo, who replied to him in kind on his blog “I raise my eyes to the sky”?

Let's go in reverse order: the last release was a reflection/interview on the same site on the topic “Women in the Bible”. The young sprint theologian defines them as particularly "reliable", "capable of remaining even in difficult situations". But then, with kind but unequivocal words, he vigorously defends the ecclesiastical tradition that puts women in the background and justifies two thousand years of misogyny, which he evidently approves of.

“The great controversy on the role of women in the Church – he says – It bothers me a lot, because it's as if we had to give space to those who have every right to believe that they already have this space.

Qhen we look at a painting, we are attracted by the figures who are at the forefront. But in reality these figures are understandable only because there is a backdrop behind them, which gives meaning to the characters on the front line. Here, women are the great backdrop of meaning within which no character on the front line could find meaning if not through them. Behind the great men of the Bible there are always great women, in the Church the most important events have always had wise figures as their backdrop.

Saint Clare, Saint Catherine of Siena, we forget that during the Avignon captivity it was Saint Catherine who "forced" Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. The love this woman had for the Church led to a revolution within the Church itself. In the sixteenth century, at the height of the Inquisition, a great woman, Saint Teresa of Avila, reformed the Carmelite Order, rethinking spiritual life from scratch. They are all women who in every century and in every historical era have left a mark that has strongly influenced the life of the Church. So we are not the ones who have to give women a role, but we must honestly recognize that they already have this role. And don't make them back away from that.".

Women would be the "backdrop" on which the male comedy takes place. Don't expect anything else. It is understandable that such a concept would have aroused the ire of feminists and others. It's useless for Don Luigi Maria to look cute. Anyone who disseminates an idea of ​​this kind, superficial as well as outdated, can only expect a reaction.

But the Epicochian reflection that interests us most comes from a few days earlier and concerns the bogeyman of "gender". The fine theologian writes on the website ofInstitute of Jesus the Priest:

“In every historical era evil has manifested itself in different ways, in this historical moment the most specific way through which evil makes itself present and acts is certainly the theory of Gender”.

Really!

Evil is not war, which continues to rage in Ukraine, Armenia, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo, Sahel, Haiti, Pakistan, Taiwan. It's the “gender”! Two horrible feminicides take place in just one week, but what are they compared to "gender"? There is climate change which destroys Romagna and forces millions of Africans to embark on migrations with no future, there is the increase in poverty. But none of this is as terrible as “gender”.

Really, from a character who does more television than pastoral work, we expected more. But he continues.

“It implicitly aims to destroy at the root that creaturely project that God wanted for each of us: diversity, distinction. Make everything homogeneous, neutral. It is the attack on difference, on the creativity of God, on man and woman".

That is: studying the role differences between females and males and noting that they do not have a natural origin (because gender studies are limited to this), means destroying God's plan. God wants us to be devoid of science, obedient to stereotypes and prejudices and, of course, also affected by homophobia (better if internalized). If not, how could one profess the idea that women are "background" and gays are people to "take care of"?

But let's move on:

“In Gender we see how an idea wants to impose itself on reality and this in a subtle way. It wants to undermine humanity at its foundations in all areas and in all possible educational declinations, and is becoming a cultural imposition which, rather than originating from below, is imposed from above by some States themselves as the only possible cultural path to adapt to".

Stuff worthy of the best chemtrail enthusiasts. I would like to meet Luigi Maria Epicoco and ask him: what are your sources? What phenomena did you observe to give rise to these ideas? Or maybe you didn't observe directly but learned about it by reading? What texts have you read? You've studied a bit queer theology? Or did you limit yourself to the writings of Msgr. Anatrella, first to theorize the existence of a "gender ideology" and now convicted of sexual abuse?

See Don Luigi: when an opinion has bad witnesses, it is not worth repeating it to a duck (or a duck, which is the same). Give yourself a break; fewer appearances and more studying could be a solution.