Speaking on March 1 about the complementary relations of men and women, Pope Francis remarked that “today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, which cancels out differences.”
“Erasing differences is erasing humanity,” the Pope told participants at a Friday private audience. He stressed the need to preserve a Christian understanding of vocations—particularly the vocation to marriage—to counter contemporary ideologies.
At the audience the Pope read only a portion of his prepared speech. He then handed the text to an aide to be read, explaining: “I still have a cold and it’s tiring to read for a while.” Pope Francis had cancelled audiences twice in the past week because of his health, and at other audiences had relied on aides to deliver his talks.