Pope Leo XIV: ‘God Created the Human Person Male and Female’

Pope Leo XIV urged Catholics Thursday to reaffirm that God created human beings male and female, telling a crowd in Lima, Peru, that the union of a man and a woman is at the heart of family life.

The pope’s remarks were in line with the Vatican’s position that gender cannot be separated from biological sex. The pope said in Lima, according to the Vatican’s official English translation:

Certainly, as you have said, cultural changes have altered the traditional roles of men and women, who seek to develop new attitudes and ways of life in the family and in society, sometimes by mistaken paths. This situation calls us to assert with even greater conviction that God created the human person male and female.

It is in this union alone that reciprocity and complementarity are expressed, giving rise to fatherhood and motherhood, filiation and fraternity, and everyone’s commitment to a better society.

Nevertheless, living the truth of our identities as male and female does not justify an unequal sharing of domestic responsibilities or the subordination of one spouse to the other. We must continue working to harmonize the roles of men and women in families and affirm that both share the responsibility for building the future of society.

The pope cited the Book of Genesis and linked the union of a man and a woman to fatherhood and motherhood.

The pope said families have rights that exist before governments put them into law. He called on public institutions to protect those rights and support families. He also spoke about mothers who feel alone while raising their children and thanked the mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who pass on their faith.

The Vatican addressed gender theory directly in its 2024 declaration Dignitas Infinita, issued under Pope Francis. The Church’s doctrinal office said biological sex and the social roles associated with it, can be understood as distinct but cannot be separated. The declaration argued that efforts to erase the difference between men and women undermine the Church’s understanding of the family.

Francis had made a similar point a month before the declaration was released. Speaking at a Vatican conference on men and women, he warned that gender theory sought to erase sexual differences.

Before he became pope, Leo opposed a Peruvian government plan to teach students about gender in schools while serving as bishop of Chiclayo. He told local media at the time that promoting gender ideology confused people.

“The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,” he said.