The Vatican has released a scathing assessment of today’s gender-bending culture, according to a guiding document on Christian ethics compiled by Catholic Church hierarchy and obtained by Fox News.
In the report, titled Dignitas Infinita, Latin for “Infinite Dignity,” the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) identifies transgenderism among a growing number of threats to human dignity in the modern world.The document opens with a statement of purpose: “In the light of Revelation, the Church resolutely reiterates and confirms the ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ.” It goes on to state that its exploration of threats to Christians now include gender ideology among more established ones such as abortion, human trafficking, poverty, euthanasia, and the death penalty.“Regarding gender theory, whose scientific coherence is the subject of considerable debate among experts, the Church recalls that human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God,” the document states. “This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good. 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.”Pope Francis, who has served since 2013, has previously called transgenderism one of the “most dangerous ideological colonizations.”The document continues, “Another prominent aspect of gender theory is that it intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them. In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvelous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world.”
Dignitas Infinita was revised numerous times, with input from Pope Francis, ahead of its approval for publication on March 25th. Among its authors is Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect for the DDF, who presented the report during a Monday press conference in Vatican City.Another notable inclusion is the process of surrogacy, in which parents permit another woman to be impregnated with their embryo and raise a child to birth. The procedure requires in-vitro fertilization, which requires the destruction of some fertilized embryos.
“The Church also takes a stand against the practice of surrogacy, through which the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object,” the document states.“First and foremost, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child. Indeed, every child possesses an intangible dignity that is clearly expressed – albeit in a unique and differentiated way – at every stage of his or her life: from the moment of conception, at birth, growing up as a boy or girl, and becoming an adult,” the dicastery wrote in the document. “Because of this unalienable dignity, the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”
“Although not comprehensive, the topics discussed in this Declaration are selected to illuminate different facets of human dignity that might be obscured in many people’s consciousness,” the text reads. “Some topics may resonate more with some sectors of society than others. Nevertheless, all of them strike us as being necessary because, taken together, they help us recognize the harmony and richness of the thought about human dignity that flows from the Gospel.”
Authors add that their report cannot be read as a comprehensive list of threats to human dignity but should serve as a north star to those who practice their faith around respect for life from conception to death.
“This Declaration does not set out to exhaust such a rich and crucial subject. Instead, its aim is to offer some points for reflection that can help us maintain an awareness of human dignity amid the complex historical moment in which we are living. This is so that we may not lose our way and open ourselves up to more wounds and profound sufferings amid the numerous concerns and anxieties of our time,” the writers conclude.
