The pope doth protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/18/pope-benedict-xvi-catholicism1/18/2009
What exactly does the pope mean when he refers to the word "gender"? In the English translation of his address to the Roman Curia on 22 Dec, provided by Bishop Michael Campbell, it is the word itself which is used, where in later interpretations it seems the holy father was actually referring to "gender theories". To those many people, Catholics included, who remain far removed from such words and theories, this vocabulary must be surely strange. All the more so when the pope singled out this term and its meanings as posing, not just a threat to Catholic values, but to human life itself.
It often seems that the pope has one particular theorist in mind when he lectures. In the December speech, it was surely the feminist philosopher and author of Gender Trouble herself, Judith Butler, whose book has been translated into countless languages, who was the real source of the pope's ambivalent fear and admiration. After all, writing as a theologian, Cardinal Ratzinger devoted several pages in his book to refuting Butler's argument. So far no feminist philosopher has won this critical attention from a holy father.
