Liberation from Nature

... the idea of liberation -- if we may indeed call freedom the common denominator of the modern mind and of our century -- has also fused very powerfully with feminist ideology. Woman is now considered the real victim of oppression. Therefore, the liberation of woman is the core of every activity undertaken for the sake of liberation. You might say that, here, political liberation theology has been superseded by an anthropological one. What is meant by liberation in this instance is not simply liberation from imposed societal roles but, ultimately, a liberation that aims to free man from his human biological determination. A distinction is now drawn between the biological phenomenon of sexuality and the forms it has taken in history, what one calls "gender." But the call for revolution against the whole historical shape of sexuality leads to a revolution against the biological givens as well. The idea that "nature" has something to say is no longer admissible; man is to have the liberty to remodel himself at will. He is to be free from all of the prior givens of his essence. He makes of himself what he wants, and only in this way is he really "free" and liberated. Behind this approach is a rebellion on man's part against the limits that he has as a biological being. In the end, it is a revolt against our creatureliness. Man is to be his own creator -- a modern, new edition of the immemorial attempt to be God, to be like God.

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
in an interview with Pete Seewalt,
The Salt of the Earth