New Vatican document outlines attacks on human dignity

Being a Christian means defending human dignity and that includes opposing abortion, the death penalty, gender transition surgery, war, sexual abuse and human trafficking, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith says in a new document.

The declaration, Dignitas infinita (‘Infinite Dignity’) gathers what recent popes have said about this ‘fundamental pillar of Christian teaching’ and summarises the novel approach offered by Pope Francis, said Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, during a news conference at the Vatican on 8 April, the day the document was released.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s document on human dignity highlights Pope Francis’ decade-long insistence that every human being—independent of their circumstances, stage of development or state of sin—possesses infinite and inalienable dignity that must be respected and protected, said the dicastery’s prefect.

In fact, the nearly 25-page document was named a ‘declaration’ in order to emphasise the doctrinal importance of the subject and the pope’s unique thinking, attitude and behaviour toward ‘the sick, those who do wrong, the forgotten’, the cardinal said.

Dignity does not depend on development, otherwise there will be no universally valid reasons to unapologetically defend human rights.

Unfortunately, not everyone is born with or has access to the same possibilities in life ‘and, therefore, it is not true that everyone is accorded the same dignity’ in today’s market-based or individualist ‘model of the success of the strong’, the cardinal said.

Dignity does not depend on development

This is why Pope Francis has repeatedly reinforced ‘the conviction of inalienable dignity’ as being independent of anyone’s circumstance or situation, he said.

For example, those who are ‘slow, less gifted and weaker have infinite value,’ and a child who has been born and one who has just been conceived have the same exact dignity, he said. ‘Their dignity does not depend on development, otherwise there will be no universally valid reasons to unapologetically defend human rights.’

In the document’s opening section, Cardinal Fernández writes, ‘We cannot separate faith from the defence of human dignity, evangelisation from the promotion of a dignified life and spirituality from a commitment to the dignity of every human being.’

He also confirms reports that a declaration on human dignity and bioethical issues—like abortion, euthanasia and surrogacy—was approved by members of the dicastery in mid-2023, explaining that Pope Francis asked the dicastery to make additions to ‘highlight topics closely connected to the theme of dignity, such as poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war and other themes’.

With its five years of preparation, ‘the document before us reflects the gravity and centrality of the theme of dignity in Christian thought,’ says Cardinal Fernández.

No matter the threat—war, poverty, violence against women, abortion, forced migration—the dignity of the human being remains the same.

A declaration on the dignity of every human being

Noting that the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) also listed attacks on human dignity as ranging from abortion and euthanasia to ‘subhuman living conditions’ and ‘degrading working conditions’, the document sets out to draw attention to about a dozen ‘grave violations of human dignity that are particularly relevant’.

It is not an exhaustive list, Cardinal Fernández said at the news conference on 8 April, and each problem is only briefly addressed as ‘each of these themes would require its own entire paper.’ The idea is to show that no matter the threat—war, poverty, violence against women, abortion, forced migration—the dignity of the human being remains the same, he said.

With each topic, he said, it is ‘important to understand the topic in a harmonious way. For example, it is true that there are at least two reasons not to accept gender ideologies,’ reasons that are developed in the document, he said.

‘Instead of helping recognise dignity,’ he said, the ideologies ‘impoverish’ the beauty and reciprocity of sexual difference, and they reflect the temptation to be ‘omnipotent’ and ‘create everything … as if there was no reality that was given’.

The declaration includes the death penalty among violations of ‘the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances’ and calls for the respect of the dignity of people who are incarcerated.

It also denounces discrimination against people who are ‘imprisoned, tortured and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation’, reaffirming that ‘every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while “every sign of unjust discrimination” is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.’

This reflects Jesus’ teaching, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ Cardinal Fernández said at the news conference.

But when the acts of violence or discrimination are explicitly called for by law, then ‘we are facing a big problem,’ he said. Cardinal Fernández said he is horrified when he reads about Catholics praising military governments for creating laws against homosexuals, saying he’s shocked that a Catholic would say such a thing given the Church’s ‘conception about human dignity’.

‘It is certain that we are in favour of decriminalisation—there is no doubt about it,’ he said.

Human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God. This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good.

The dangers of eliminating difference

The document nevertheless condemns ‘gender theory’ as ‘extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal’.

Gender theory, it says, tries ‘to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference’.

The Catholic Church, the declaration says, teaches that ‘human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God. This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good.’

Quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation Amoris laetitia, the declaration says gender ideology ‘envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family’.

In the document, dicastery members acknowledge there is a difference between biological sex and the roles and behaviours that a given society or culture assigns to a male or female, but say the fact that some of those notions of what it means to be a woman or a man are culturally influenced does not mean there are no differences between biological males and biological females.

‘Therefore,’ they say, ‘all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected.’

Again quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation, the declaration says, ‘We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.’

‘Any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,’ it says. However, the declaration clarifies that ‘this is not to exclude the possibility that a person with genital abnormalities that are already evident at birth or that develop later may choose to receive the assistance of healthcare professionals to resolve these abnormalities.’

Pope Francis has made it clear that everyone must be welcomed and accompanied, even those whose thinking and choices are ‘different from what the Church says in its doctrine’.

Cardinal Fernández said that Pope Francis has made it clear that everyone must be welcomed and accompanied, even those whose thinking and choices are ‘different from what the Church says in its doctrine’.

The cardinal was also asked why, since the Church sees sex change treatment as a violation of human dignity, the dicastery did not specifically mention the practice of medical interventions for children.

‘Very few words are said about sex change’ in the document, the cardinal said. But it is especially serious when it comes to children because it is a decision that ‘changes your whole life’.

The gift of human life

In the document, members of the dicastery also warn about the implications of changing language about human dignity, citing for example those who propose the expressions ‘personal dignity’ or ‘the rights of the person’ instead of ‘human dignity’.

The dignity of every human person, precisely because it is intrinsic, remains in all circumstances.

In many cases, they say, the proposal understands ‘a “person” to be only “one who is capable of reasoning”’. They then argue that dignity and rights are deduced from the individual’s capacity for knowledge and freedom, which not all humans possess. Thus, according to them, the unborn child would not have personal dignity, nor would the older person who is dependent upon others, nor would an individual with mental disabilities.’

The Catholic Church, on the contrary, ‘insists that the dignity of every human person, precisely because it is intrinsic, remains in all circumstances.’

The acceptance of abortion, it says, ‘is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.’

‘Procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth,’ it says.

The document also repeats Pope Francis’ call for a global ban on surrogacy, which, he has said, is ‘a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs’.

Surrogacy, it says, transforms a couple’s legitimate desire to have a child into ‘a “right to a child” that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life.’ Asked at the news conference about the Church’s position against the practice of surrogacy, and the idea that it turns an ‘immensely worthy child’ into a ‘mere object’, the cardinal said it refers to the child becoming the object of someone’s desire to have children.

The Church is sensitive to those who want to have children, he said, but they are invited to ‘transcend that desire’ because the dignity of the people involved, including the surrogate mother, ‘is a much greater thing than the desire that one may have’ and not every desire in life can be fulfilled.

‘There is always the possibility of adoption for so many who need to have a family that not only receives them, but receives them with love,’ he added.

Suffering does not cause the sick to lose their dignity, which is intrinsically and inalienably their own.

The promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the document says, ‘utilises a mistaken understanding of human dignity to turn the concept of dignity against life itself’.

It says, ‘Certainly, the dignity of those who are critically or terminally ill calls for all suitable and necessary efforts to alleviate their suffering through appropriate palliative care and by avoiding aggressive treatments or disproportionate medical procedures,’ but it also insists that ‘suffering does not cause the sick to lose their dignity, which is intrinsically and inalienably their own.’

War, poverty, migrants and refugees

Extreme poverty, the marginalisation of people with disabilities, violent online attacks and war also violate human dignity, the document says.

While recognising the right of nations to defend themselves against an aggressor, the document insists armed conflicts ‘will not solve problems but only increase them. This point is even more critical in our time when it has become commonplace for so many innocent civilians to perish beyond the confines of a battlefield.’

On the issue of migrants and refugees, the dicastery members write that while ‘no one will ever openly deny that they are human beings,’ many migration policies and popular attitudes towards migrants ‘can show that we consider them less worthy, less important, less human’.