General audience: man and woman, unique and complementary

Pope Francis held his general audience on Wednesday in Saint Peter’s Square. Under a beautiful spring sun and before tens of thousands of faithful, the Supreme Pontiff continued his catechesis on the family, focusing on the account of the creation of man and woman through Genesis. The Pope took up the second chapter of the first book of the Bible, where «God formed man of the dust of the ground ; he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being». The Spirit suggests for a moment the image of man alone, explained Francis, who lackssomething. He lacks a communion, a fullness. When God presents woman to man, after having fashioned the earthly creatures, the latter exults.

«There is a reciprocity, a reflection » the Pope emphasized; this reciprocity with woman is what man lacked in order to arrive at his fullness. «Woman is not a replica of man. She comes directly from the creative act of God; she is neither in inferiority nor in subordination » he further explained, wishing to dispel the sometimes distorted image of the “rib” drawn from man. God fashions woman while man sleeps, and the Pope specified, not without poetry, that« in order to find woman and her love, man must therefore dream of woman ».

Woman, sometimes considered a "second-class" creature

«The trust that God places in man and woman, to whom he entrusts the earth, is generous and fullcontinued the Pope. He trusts them. But the Evil One entered into their minds, infused suspicion, disbelief and defiance, which lead in the end to the fall and to disobedience. We too feel this so many times within ourselves » he emphasized. The Pope thus lamented the many sins that result from the rupture of this covenant. « Sin will provoke between them distrust and division. They will be tempted in their relationships by a thousand forms of misconduct, of deceitful seduction and humiliating tyranny, sometimes dramatic and violent. History bears the traces of this, the Holy Father specified. Let us think of the negative excesses of patriarchal cultures, where woman is consideredsecond-class, denouncing in passingthe commodification of the woman’s body.

The Pope therefore warned against "the epidemic of scepticism, of defiance and even of hostility" that marks contemporary culture with regard to the covenant of man and woman. On the path that is born of the encounter between the two,man is everything for woman, and woman is everything for man Francis restated. “The undervaluing of marriage is a loss for everyone he finally denounced, inviting us to restore marriage and the family to a place of honour. «Even though he is a sinner, wounded, discouraged, God protects the human couple, his masterpiece " the Pope concluded.

Source:news.va