On Monday, the Vatican declared sex reassignment surgery and surrogacy as a grave violation of human dignity, thus putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that reject God’s plan for human life.
The Vatican’s doctrine office has issued a 20-page declaration entitled “Infinite Dignity”, which has been five years in the making. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved by Pope Francis on the 25th of March, who ordered its publication.
Rejecting gender theory
Although the decision is not to the liking of LGBTQ+ Catholics, it is, on the one hand, to be expected. The message of the declaration is in line with the Argentinian Jesuit’s long-held belief that transgender people should be welcomed in the Church, but that so-called gender theory should not. In fact, he believes that gender theory is the gravest danger facing humanity today. In his opinion, this ugly ideology threatens to eradicate the God-given differences between men and women.
By issuing the declaration in question, the Vatican reaffirmed its rejection of “gender theory”, or the idea that biological sex can be changed. God created man and woman as biologically distinct and separate beings, they said, and people should not play with this in an attempt to “make oneself God”. Any intervention in gender reassignment, they argue, threatens the unique dignity that a person has received and held from the moment of conception.
In a show of criticism, LGBTQ+ Catholic advocates have labelled the document as outdated, harmful, and contrary to the stated goal of recognising the “infinite dignity” of all God’s children. They warned that it could have real consequences for transgender people, as it would encourage violence and discrimination against them. “While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honoured, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo, a well-known advocate for LGBTQ+ Catholics, according to the Associated Press.
The document also warns that a termination of pregnancy “is nothing less than a denial of human dignity to the most innocent of them all”. It also rejects surrogacy because it “renders the child a mere object of an activity that deeply violates the dignity of the woman and of the child and is based on the exploitation of the mother’s material hardship.”
Ž. N.
