(CP) The Vatican has released a latest document confirming the Catholic Church’s opposition to gender transition surgeries and surrogacy because it seeks to attract attention to the institution’s longstanding teachings in regards to the indispensable dignity of the human person.
The Roman Catholic Church’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a declaration titled “Dignitas Infinita” on Monday, searching for to make clear the Church’s positions on various matters related to human dignity.
“[E]very person, no matter sexual orientation, should be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every unjust sign of discrimination’ is to be fastidiously avoided, particularly any type of aggression and violence,” the document reaffirms.Â
While suggesting that LGBT people should be treated with dignity, the document condemns “gender theory” for example of “a private self-determination” that “amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God” and rejects the teaching that “human life, in all its dimensions, each physical in spiritual, is a present from God” that “is to be accepted with gratitude and placed on the service of the great.”
The declaration also takes issue with gender theory’s denial of “the best possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”
It stresses that “all attempts to obscure reference to ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected” because “we cannot separate the masculine and the female from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist that are not possible to disregard.”
The document states that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” The dicastery stated the teaching specified by the Catechism of the Catholic Church that “the human body shares within the dignity of ‘the image of God'” and notes how Pope Francis previously declared that “we’re called to guard our humanity, and this implies, in the primary place, accepting it and respecting it because it was created.”
“Dignitas Infinita” decries surrogacy as a situation where “the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object,” highlighting how “the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the kid.”
“The child has the appropriate to have a totally human (and never artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests each the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver,” the declaration reads. “Moreover, acknowledging the dignity of the human person also entails recognizing every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation.”
“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a toddler can’t be transformed right into a ‘right to a toddler’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child because the recipient of the gift of life,” the document maintained.
The declaration states that in surrogacy, “the girl is detached from the kid growing in her and becomes a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others.”
When it involves euthanasia and assisted suicide, the declaration proclaims that “human life carries a dignity that should be upheld.”
“[T]listed below are no circumstances under which human life would stop from being dignified and, consequently, be put to an end,” the declaration reads.
“Therefore, helping the suicidal person to take his or her own life is an objective offense against the dignity of the person asking for it, even when one could be thereby fulfilling the person’s wish,” the document stated.
When it involves abortion, the declaration reaffirms the Catholic Church’s longstanding opposition to the procedure, sharing a quote from Pope St. John Paul II taking issue with the “widespread use of ambiguous terminology, akin to ‘interruption of pregnancy,’ which tends to cover abortion’s true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion.”
As explained at the start of the document, the efforts to create “Dignitas Infinita“Â date back to 2019, when the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith elected to start “the drafting of a text highlighting the indispensable nature of the dignity of the human person in Christian anthropology” reflecting “the newest developments on the topic in academia and the ambivalent ways during which the concept is known today.”
Additional topics discussed within the declaration include poverty, war, human trafficking, sexual abuse, violence against women, the death penalty and the marginalization of individuals with disabilities.
