Surely it can be said that our current era is marked by unprecedented confusion concerning the nature of man and woman. Dangerous distortions of the foundations of personal identity are spreading and appear to be accelerating, leading to tragic consequences for our culture and our children. Society today lacks an adequate appreciation of what is undoubtedly the fundamental reality at the heart of the human condition: that we are created male and female. We are in desperate need of a robust, coherent, and faithful account of man and woman. That we don’t already have one at this point in the history of our tradition is an unfortunate lacuna. It might have helped humanity resist the madness descending all around us.
But we will not put a stop to this onslaught by merely illuminating the evident errors in the ideology behind it. Our response in this present era must also be constructive and doctrinally sound. And the Church has already asked the right questions. The 1987 Synod of Bishops on the Vocation and Mission of the Family put it in the clearest and simplest of terms: How are we to understand the Creator’s purpose, the bishops ask, in determining that human beings would always exist as only either a man or a woman? And what are the consequences of that decision?
In October 2024, Franciscan University of Steubenville held a conference titled "Man and Woman in the Order of Creation." Cosponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, the purpose of the gathering was to take up the critical task of providing a robust, full-throated response to these questions. This collection of papers from the conference reflects the fundamental recognition that what is needed is a comprehensive account of man and woman—one that is faithful, thorough, and grounded not only in theology and philosophy, but also in science. Thus the volume includes the insights of experts from a number of disciplines, including biology, neuroscience, and psychology, as well as those from philosophy and theology. Taken as a whole, the volume reveals that God is indeed the author of all truth.
