In Beijing, as in Cairo, the Vatican delegation stressed the Church's teaching on the distinctiveness of the sexes created by God, the innate dignity of all human life, and the complementarity of males and females. The affirmation of the family and of motherhood follows from this. So does opposition to divorce, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, aberrant sexual behavior, and violence of all kinds. Of course, the Church's affirmation of the equal dignity and worth of every human life, and denunciation of every kind of injustice and abuse, that is to say sin, is grounded in this fundamental truth about human beings created by God in His image. It has been clear for many years that feminist ideologues will not be mollified by a tame feminism redefined to correspond with Christian teaching.
Exhortation can be effective only if people are genuinely disposed to receive it.
At present, the Catholic Church must not only face revolutionaries from the secular world, but from deep within her own body - from militant dissenters who seek to destroy the patriarchal Church. The gender-neutralizing of language promoted by influential Catholic feminists is but one aspect of this. Perhaps Beijing will be seen as a prophetic warning to a world seemingly bent on suicide. The events of the U.N. Conference on Women forced us to look at the distorted face of ideological terrorism - an aspect of feminine genius which uglifies, cripples and destroys human life itself. The Church must not speak the truth of Christ in whispers.