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An American community of sisters “paid” for a lecture with what the speaker called an “abundance” of prayers, moving her to tears, as she made public on Twitter this past October 12.
Catholic professor Abigail Favale, from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, is a Catholic expert on gender ideology and gave a lecture on this subject to the community. The professor is also the author of the book The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory (Ignatius Press).
Gender ideology is a set of pseudoscientific theses based on the idea that human sexual identity is dissociated from biological sex and, therefore, a social construct.
Pope Francis has spoken out about the dangers of gender ideology on several occasions. Last year he said, “The ‘gender’ ideology of which you speak is dangerous, yes. As I understand it, it is so because it is abstract with respect to the concrete life of a person, as if a person could decide abstractly at will if and when to be a man or a woman.”
Catholic doctors have spoken out about the harmful character of gender ideology, and even as aggressively secular an organization as England’s National Health Service has backed off somewhat from an uncritical and aggressive “gender-affirming model of care.” Still, great political militancy around the theses of gender ideology persists in dozens of countries.
After the lecture, Professor Favale posted a thread on Twitter:
I have to share this: last weekend I gave a talk at a nearby convent, and in lieu of a stipend I asked for their prayers. Well. Today I walked into my office to find a bouquet and a card brimming with notes from sisters who have pledged to pray for me.
… Dozens of holy hours, rosaries, stations, chaplets, sacrifices–one sister even promised a *year* of night prayer. I am just overcome. What abundance. Please pray for religious vocations; we need this kind of holy generosity more than ever.
Someone commented, “What a gift,” and Favale responded: “Yeah, I wept.”
Promising to pray for someone could sound “cheaper” than cash, but following through is no small commitment, and when the gift is sincere and fulfilled (and the terms agreed upon in advance, as in this case), it is priceless.
