(RepublicanPress.org) – The Catholic Church has taken a remarkably permissive approach to members of the LGBTQ+ community in the last decade, thanks in large part to Pope Francis. However, the Vatican recently issued a doctrinal paper blasting gender reassignment surgery and other radical social issues.
On April 8, the Holy See issued a summary bulletin announcing the release of a Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” (Latin for “Infinite Dignity”) on Human Dignity by the Doctrinal Section (DDF) of the Roman Curia.
The 14,000-word document addressed over a dozen modern issues through the lens of Church doctrine as interpreted over a roughly five-year span by the DDF and other high-ranking officials. For instance, the Dignitas Infinita reiterated the Holy See’s opposition to gender reassignment procedures.
The section devoted to “Sex Change” stressed that the Catechism of the Catholic Church “expressly [invited members] to recognize that ‘the human body shares… the dignity of the image of God.'” It warned that parishioners must remember that human beings are “inseparably composed of… body and soul,” particularly “when it comes to sex change [procedures’.”
Both body and soul unite to create a person’s “being” and “participate in the dignity that characterizes” everyone. Moreover, people’s physical being plays a role in basic humanity, endows everyone with personal meaning, and provides the opportunity for loving relationships “capable of generating other persons,” a reference to bearing children.
The DDF summarized those concerns by cautioning that “sex-change intervention… risks threatening the… dignity” bestowed upon everyone upon conception. Likewise, the document explained that a person’s birth sex is a holy gift. Any attempt to alter one’s gender places a person at the risk of giving in to “the temptation to make oneself a God.”
The DDF also addressed several other controversial topics like human trafficking, immigration, and poverty, characterizing them as potential threats to human dignity. The document spent considerable time clarifying the Holy See’s doctrinal position on abortion, grouping it with other “grave violations” like willful suicide, euthanasia, genocide, and murder.
The panel took a strong stand against surrogate motherhood, affirming the Church’s standing position that the practice “represents a grave violation” of the unborn child and mother’s dignity.
Copyright 2024, RepublicanPress.org
