Referring to gender fluidity as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”, the Vatican released an updated declaration of what the Roman Catholic Church considers as threats to human dignity.
The 20-page Dignitas infinita (Infinite Dignity) declaration – which was released by the Vatican’s doctrinal office – took five years to be made, reiterating Pope Francis’s criticism of what he called an “ugly ideology of our time”. Interestingly, the word “transgender” was not mentioned even once in the document.
“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the gospel,” stated the document.
Specifically opposing gender affirmation surgery, the documents added: “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
The Vatican document distinguished between transgender and intersex people, with the former’s decision on self-determination, including transitioning, basically opposed; while the latter, even if not outright mentioned, given the go-signal to undergo surgeries and procedures to resolve “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or develop later.
Pope Francis – who has been positioning himself as pro-LGBTQIA – is said to have approved this document.
Dignitas infinita also condemned surrogacy that its claimed is a practice that represents “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”. “A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract… Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity.”
Interestingly, with its anti-LGBTQIA position, the same document still wanted to be seen as pro-LGBTQIA. More specifically, it called for an end to laws that criminalize homosexuality.
“It should be denounced as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation,” it stated.
