Kto się boi gender? Kościół rzymskokatolicki w Polsce i kategoria płci

The paper adresses the question of how sex/gender is understood within the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and to what extend it recognizes the category of gender. The objects of the analysis are the teaching of the Roman Curia as well as the documents of the local Church in Poland and statements of Polish bishops from 2013 - 2014. The results of qualitative research conducted among diocesan priests of the Archdiocese of Krakow in 2007 are treated as complementary data. The Church uses the notion of sex that is naturalistic, essentialist, binary and based on the complementarity of sexes. Although the Church does not reduce the notion of sex to the biological aspects, nevertheless the interpretation of gender as social construction is limited. The category of gender has been frequently criticized as ideological by the local Church in Poland and by the Roman Curia. The ahistorical category of sex, present in the discourse of the Roman Catholic Church and in the perceptions of its representatives - priests, petrifies the present gender contract.