STEUBENVILLE — Franciscan University of Steubenville brought together expert speakers and panelists for the Men and Women in the Order of Creation Conference held Oct. 24-26. Co-sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, the conference aimed to analyze the God-given identities of men and women and the implications of those realities through the lens of several disciplines: biology, neuroscience, metaphysics , theology and psychology.

“The Church poses the question very simply: Why did God make us male and female? And what are the implications of that decision? said Deborah Savage, conference organizer and professor of theology at Franciscan University, in her welcome address. “The central premise of these procedures is the conviction that what is needed is a coherent and sound explanation, grounded scientifically, philosophically and theologically, of the nature of man and woman, both in themselves and in relation to each other.”

Francis Maier, EPPC senior fellow in Catholic studies, opened the conference with a talk on what it means to be human. He shared how each person is God’s work with “a unique place and purpose in the world.” However, in contrast to modern individualistic and materialistic culture, Maier said that this creation of both men and women points to the fact that people must depend on each other, noting, “This complementarity of man and woman, that unity of different mind and body, is fundamental to the human experience. We are not human without it.”

The next day, John Finley, professor of philosophy at Thomas Aquinas College, returned to these thoughts in his talk on human beings as a microcosm of creation.

“Talking about the human as a microcosm means that, in our unity, we show the spiritual and the material at the same time.” said. “We are one thing: a spiritualized body or an incarnated spirit.”

The conference continued with talks on the importance of sex differences through the lens of biology, medicine, neuroscience, and psychiatry.

“Sex differences between men and women are not limited to the reproductive organs.” said Aaron Kheriaty, a physician specializing in psychiatry and director of the EPPC Program in Bioethics and American Democracy. He noted that the differences extend to all levels of human biology and, “Apart from our reproductive organs, the most sexually differentiated organ in the human body is the brain. The differences between men and women are not just physical. They are psychological.”

He pointed out how men and women see and interpret the world differently. He also recognized that sex-specific personality traits exist on an overlapping bell curve, but these variations do not diminish that person’s innate masculinity or femininity.

“One mistake that contemporary gender theory or ideology makes is the notion that a man with some characteristically feminine traits or interests is actually a woman trapped in a man’s body, and vice versa. “That’s not true.” Kheriaty said. “He can be a boy who likes ballet, or she can be a girl who likes soccer. That’s all. Failure to recognize the full extent of this variation and overlap in gender traits results in overly rigid cultural stereotypes about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.”

Philosophers and theologians then raised two fundamental questions: “who is the man” and “who is a woman” – through a metaphysical and theological lens.

In her talk, Angela Franks, professor of theology at St. John’s Seminary and senior fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute, described a brief history of how secularization has impacted people’s sense of identity. He talked about how modern culture has misinterpreted identity as a sense of self that one constructs, not as a reality that one receives.

“If we conceive of identity not as a project but as a received task, then the most important thing is not to discern what I want, desire, or feel… (but rather) what the source of my identity has in mind for me. In a theistic and transcendent approach, this means discerning God’s plan. she said. “This plan may be revealed through my feelings, preferences, and strengths, but it will also stretch me in unforeseen ways, so this plan cannot simply be read from my preferences.”

Below, two psychologists who work with couples consider men and women in daily life, especially in marriage.

Drawing on the teachings of Pope Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, psychologist Greg Bottaro argued that a woman exercising her feminine genius can help a man grow in his own virtues, and vice versa. This mutual reciprocity of self-giving illustrates how “God made us different for a reason.” said. “That reason is so that we become better versions of ourselves by receiving and incorporating what we do not yet have on our own.”

“Marriage is a vocation to holiness because man and woman are called to submit to each other out of love.” he added, “Not to seek to be the first with our own individual inclinations and perspectives, but to allow ourselves to receive and be formed by the other.”

In the conference’s closing panel discussion, Mary Rice Hasson, Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at EPPC and co-founder and director of the Person and Identity Project, offered takeaways and encouraged attendees to “Be who you are as a man or as a woman.”

“Our mission as men and women to affect the created order means that we have to accept that difference and we have to collaborate.” Hasson said. “The only way to do it is to be more virtuous.”

During the conference, the Rev. Dave Pivonka, TOR, president of Franciscan University, and Savage announced Franciscan University’s intention to establish an Institute for the Study of Men and Women.

Currently in its proposal stage, the institute would continue to study the meaning and importance of “Anthropological foundations of masculinity and femininity.” requested by Pope Saint John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation on the laity, Christifideles laici. The Pope’s work highlighted how the complementarity of the relationship between men and women is what constitutes his mission not only to create families but also human history itself. Drawing on these ideas in describing the institute’s mission, Savage noted “Both men and women need a much deeper understanding of who they are—their identities, their genius, and their mission—if they are to realize their own humanity and the mission God has given them.”

The new institute will also introduce a curriculum for Franciscan University students that provides a comprehensive Catholic view of men and women.

The conference was made possible through the generosity of the Henkels family. Other sponsors included the International Forum of Catholic Jurists and the Mary Elizabeth Charitable Trust.