The Vatican confirms its doctrine against sex changes, gender theory and surrogacy. In a long-awaited document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Holy Office, the Holy See published this Monday a list of what it considers “serious violations” of human dignity, condemning these acts at the same level as abortion or euthanasia, always criticized by the Catholic Church.
It is a declaration of around twenty pages entitled Dignitas infinite, on human dignity that was approved by Pope Francis at the end of March. Its preparation has taken five years, and its purpose is to offer “important clarifications” to avoid the “frequent confusion” about what Catholicism considers human dignity. The existence of this document had been rumored for a long time, but until recently it was not confirmed by the prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close ally of Pope Francis. This text could be interpreted as an attempt by the Pontiff to calm the waters with the most conservative sector of the Church, after the strong controversies that arose as a result of his green light for the blessings of homosexual couples, something that, for example, has not wanted to accept the African Church.
Now the Doctrine of Faith points out what it sees as “some concrete and serious violations” of human dignity in the contemporary world, including sex change operations. In this section, the Church remembers that the Pope teaches that “we are called to guard our humanity, and that means above all to accept and respect it as it has been created.” Hence, he adds, “any sex change operation, as a general rule, runs the risk of attacking the unique dignity that the person has received from the moment of conception.” The declaration makes one exception: the possibility of receiving medical assistance in the case of “a person affected by genital anomalies, which are already evident at birth or which develop later.” So, “the operation would not constitute a sex change.”
The Holy See, although it denounces the criminalization of homosexuality in some countries, also raises its voice against the so-called gender ideology since it believes that “it seeks to deny the greatest possible difference between living beings: sexual difference.” The Church believes it is “unacceptable” that “they try to impose themselves as a single thought that determines even the education of children.” He also charges against surrogacy, a practice that the Argentine pope had already defined as “deplorable” in January, when he asked the international community to ban it universally. The document denounces that in this way the child becomes a “mere object” and that children must have “a fully human origin and not artificially induced”, at the same time that the dignity of women is violated, which “is becomes a mere means at the service of the benefit or arbitrary desire of others.”
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith also reiterates the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion, euthanasia or the “discarding” of people with disabilities. The novelty of the document is the inclusion of some important topics for Bergoglio’s pontificate, such as the drama of poverty and migrants or human trafficking. That is to say, it places the condemnation of abortion on the same level as war, “a tragedy that denies human dignity” to the point that “today it is very difficult to sustain the criteria of a just war”; or “digital violence”, such as endangering people’s reputations with “fake news and slander” or cyberbullying and the distribution of pornography. Furthermore, it declares violence against women a “global scandal.”
“The new text contributes to overcoming the existing dichotomy between those who concentrate exclusively on the defense of life that is born or dies and forget about so many other attacks against human dignity and vice versa, those who concentrate only on defense of the poor and migrants, forgetting that life must be defended from conception to its natural conclusion,” concludes Andrea Tornielli, the editorial writer for Vatican News, the official portal of the Vatican.
