Pope Francis repeated his opposition to gender identity classes during a trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan over the weekend, calling teaching children that gender can be a choice part of a "global war out to destroy marriage."
"This is against nature," the pope said during a return flight Sunday, according to CNN. "It is one thing when someone has this tendency ... and it is another matter to teach this in school."
"To change the mentality — I call this ideological colonization," he continued.
The topic came up earlier during a meeting small of a small Catholic community in Georgia, where a woman asked about teaching gender identity in schools, Reuters reported.
"You mentioned a great enemy of marriage: gender theory," the Pope responded, according to Reuters. "Today, there is a global war out to destroy marriage. Not with weapons but with ideas ... we have to defend ourselves from ideological colonization."
The comments echoed the Pope's viewpoint expressed in August when he told bishops from Poland that teaching gender identity in schools was "ideological colonizing," USA Today reported.
"Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well, and has a clear mind, he was telling me: 'Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator.' He’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite," Francis said, according to USA Today.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic LGBT advocacy group, took issue with the pope's remarks.
"The pontiff's remarks are further evidence that church officials need desperately to educate themselves about the lives and experiences of LGBT people," DeBernardo said, according to CNN. "Nobody chooses a gender identity. They discover it."
The comments sparked controversy on Twitter.
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