Sonia Corrêa
In April 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, the main doctrinal body of the Holy See, published the Declaration Dignitas Infinita – On Human Dignity. This new text may be read as the first guidelines on gender and related matters in which the imprimatur of Francis I is flagrant. It groups “abortion”, “surrogate pregnancy”, “theory of gender” “change of sex”, “ abortion” but also “sexual abuse” and “violence against women” under the same frame addressing the main crises of the world today: poverty, war, migration, human trafficking, and digital violence.
In this expanded doctrinal frame abortion rights, gender theorizing, sex reassignment, and surrogacy are condemned not only as threats to the family, the Church, and “nature” — as it happened in the past– but as violations of “ontological human dignity”. These matters are also equated with devastating scourges of the present time, particularly war. A thorough critical review of Dignitas Infinitas would require a more careful and detailed analysis than what is provided in this short note. However, due to its relevance, I consider it urgent to perform a first reading of its content.
Vatican texts are never singular but related to previous doctrinal elucubrations upon which their substratum is grounded, and Dignitas Infinita is not an exception. While it is impossible to delve into its deeper genealogy, this note briefly examines a few of its many layers.
The layers
In its main layer, the Declaration diligently invests in compiling arguments to prevent “the frequent confusions” that, in the Vatican´s view, plague current uses of the term “dignity”. Recalling the relationship between dignity and reason established by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, it grounds the concept of ontological and inalienable dignity of every woman and man. In this framing, dignity is transcendentally inscribed in the difference of sexed bodies. Dignitas Infinita also insists that this is the correct frame to be used in a proper reading of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The text also distinguishes this Catholic concept of dignity from other conceptions, such as moral dignity, social dignity, and existential dignity that, as we know, also infuse contemporary ethical, political, and juridical debates and norms. It vigorously states that ontological dignity is true dignity that can never be “canceled”.
Once these axioms are established, the text engages in landscaping the main crisis of our times, singling out twelve situations that, in its view, imply major violations of ontological dignity: poverty; war; the travail of migrants; human trafficking; sexual abuse; violence against women; abortion; surrogacy; euthanasia and assisted suicide; the marginalization of people with disabilities; gender theory; sex reassignment, and digital violence. In a third layer, the text clarifies why in the Vatican’s view, these negative contemporary realities violate the Catholic conception of ontological (and ahistorical) dignity.
Before detailing why each of these topics implies a violation of ontological dignity, the Declaration spells out several overarching doctrinal definitions. One of them explains, in a very convoluted way, how ontological dignity is inscribed in bodily difference, even though bodily differential “image” does not determine the soul or intellectual capacity. The text reads as follows:
“Human beings do not create their nature, which is a gift they have received. They can cultivate, develop, and enrich their own capacities. By exercising the freedom to cultivate the riches of this nature, the human person builds himself up over time. Even if he or she is not able to act with all his or her capacities, the person always subsists as an “individual substance… In his image, God created him, male and female. Humanity has a specific quality that makes it irreducible to pure materiality. The (bodily) ‘image’ does not define the soul or the intellectual capacities, but the dignity of man and woman.”
The Declaration then explores the implications of this doctrinal tenet when applied to world realities, in particular in what concerns human rights epistemologies and heuristics. In that respect, it articulates the notion of ontological dignity with a vigorous critique of excessive individualism and “imposing subjectivities” while also contesting a supposed proliferation of “new rights”:
“(Today) the concept of human dignity is also occasionally misused to justify an arbitrary proliferation of new rights, many of which are at odds with those originally defined and are often placed in opposition to the fundamental right to life. This perspective identifies dignity with an isolated and individualistic freedom that seeks to impose particular subjective desires and propensities as “rights” to be guaranteed and financed by the community. However, human dignity cannot be based on merely individualistic standards, nor can it be identified with the psychophysical well-being of the individual. Instead, the defense of human dignity is based on the constitutive demands of human nature, which do not depend on individual arbitrariness or social recognition”.
With respect to this particular elaboration, it is important to recall that in the course of the last ten years, a “critique of new rights” has been increasingly brandished by anti-gender and anti-abortion rights forces that propose a literal reading of the 1948 Human Rights Declaration (UDHR).[1] In syntony with that view, Dignitas Infinita states that, quite regrettably, the contemporary interpretations of the UDHR misuse the concept of human dignity to justify the arbitrary multiplication of new rights, as if “it were due to guarantee the expression and realization of every individual preference or subjective desire”.
The text positively emphasizes the relational character of human dignity while at the same time attacking what it defines as “self-referential and individualistic freedom that seeks to create its own values, disregarding objective norms of the good and the relationship with other living beings”.
What does the Declaration define about “abortion”?
The argument developed in Dignitas Infinita to condemn abortion differs from previous Vatican documents in that it does not immediately and directly resort to the grammar of the “culture of death”, which prevailed in other Vatican texts on the matter since, at least, the 1990s. But it staunchly criticizes the terminology “termination of pregnancy” as a euphemism whose purpose is to hide “dark realities”. It also states that: “Induced abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means, of a human being in the initial phase of its existence, from conception to birth.” According to the Declaration, this clarification is very urgent, because:
“The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior, and even in the law itself is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming increasingly unable to distinguish between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.”
The main focus of Dignitas Infinita is, therefore, what, in Latin America has been defined as the ”social decriminalization of abortion”. Given the firm tone of the text, the guideline is a strong call for the multiplicity of actors now engaged in anti-gender and anti-abortion cyclones to contain, by all means possible, the pace of this continuing process of socio-cultural and legal transformation.
What does the Declaration define in relation “theory of gender” and “sex change”?
About these other topics, a few preliminary observations should be made. Firstly, the text does not use the accusatory category “gender ideology” , but rather “theory of gender”. This is not exactly new, as this term was used already at the 2013 Manif pour Tous in France, as well as in subsequent anti-gender mobilizing in Slovenia. It has also appeared at random in Bergoglio´s mercurial anti-gender speech acts and, most principally, it is the terminology adopted by the first doctrinal document issued by Francis papacy in 2019, to guide the responses of the Church and the faithful to the dangers of “gender theory in education”.
Its use in the new doctrinal guideline, whose status is higher, can eventually be read as a definitive semantic turn. In other words, the Vatican may from now on focus on the critique of the “theory of gender”. Such a shift could be eventually seen as a softening of the Vatican´s refutation of gender. However –and perhaps more realistic- it can also be a symptom of a firm disposition on the part of the Holy See to more directly and frontally contest critical knowledge production on gender.
It is also very relevant that, in line with various Francis I statements expressing tolerance towards homosexuality, when explaining why “gender theory” is a form of knowledge antagonistic to ontological dignity, Dignitas Infinita, develops the following argument:
“… each person, regardless of their sexual orientation, must be respected in their dignity and welcomed with respect, taking care to avoid ‘all forms of unjust discrimination’ and particularly all forms of aggression and violence”.
But subsequently, and quite abruptly, the text returns to the “problem of new rights” deriving from “gender theory” and linking this problem with “cancel culture”.
“…attempts made in recent decades to introduce new rights have given way to ideological colonizations, among which gender theory plays a central role, which is extremely dangerous because it cancels out differences in the pretense of making everyone the same.”
Then, Dignitas´ argument moves towards making clear why, in the Vatican’s view, “gender theory” is incompatible with ontological dignity:
“(This incompatibility comes from the fact that this theory) tries to deny the sexual difference, which is the founding, greatest, most beautiful, and potent (difference) because in the duality man-woman, the most admirable reciprocity is achieved and it is the source of that miracle, which is the arrival of new human beings into the world.”
After these overlapping elucubrations, the text finally uses the notion of ideology to explain that “gender theory is ideological” because it “proposes a society without sex differences, emptying the anthropological basis of the family” which is “unacceptable”. Then, returning to the central argument of the 2019 document on “gender theory in education” it adds: “Ideologies of this kind try to impose themselves as a single thought that determines the education of children”.
Having set these general doctrinal parameters, in what concerns specifically gender reassignment, the Declaration once again underlines that the “dignity of the body is not inferior to that of the person as such”. Consequently, continues the text, “sex-reassignment interventions threaten the unique dignity that the person has received from the moment of conception which is expressed through their corporeality”. On the other hand, and quite contradictorily, Dignitas Infinita authorizes compulsory surgical interventions imposed on intersex people (most often children) to adjust their bodies to the dominant norm of binary sexual difference, in the following terms:
” 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. …”
This position is openly incongruent with the premise that ontological sexual difference is determined at the moment of conception, as this is also the moment when intersex persons acquire their sex characteristics (which according to this new text can be altered by surgical interventions). This view also explains the bold efforts made by the Vatican to prevent the approval of Resolution A/HRC/55/L.9 at the UN Human Rights Council in April 2024. The resolution fully recognizes the human rights of intersex persons, including the right to be protected from coercive surgical interventions. [3]
To (partially) conclude
Dignitas Infinita places “abortion”, “gender theory” and “sex change” under an overarching frame addressing the major crises of the contemporary world. In doing so it equates these realities with the flagellum of poverty, war, and the drama of migration (amongst other conditions viewed as violations of ontological dignity).
About abortion, the Declaration calls for the containment of what it defines as “the popular and legal normalization” of the violation of the right to life implied in “termination of pregnancy”. It also incites sharp divisions about “gender matters” when it equates the violations inherent to sexual abuse and violence against women with what it defines as scourging effects of “abortion” “gender theory”, “change of sex” and surrogacy”. A similar divisive approach is blatant when Dignitas Infinitas recognizes the full dignity of persons whose sexual orientation diverges from the norm while abhorring the diversity of gender identity as a violation of ontological human dignity.
These arguments may be read as Francis I’s peculiar imprints on Vatican doctrinal views on the “troubling problems of gender”. On the other hand, the Declaration is also more of the same. As Vatican thinkers have always done when addressing matters of gender, it recaptures and slightly updates Thomas Aquinas’ conceptual frame on sexual difference and procreation. And, it does not substantially differ from Ratzinger’s elucubrations that would later give rise to the “gender phantasm” a position that was already explicit in the 1985 Ratzinger Report:
“among the battles of ´liberation´ of our time there has also been that of escaping from the ‘slavery of nature,’ demanding the right to be male or female at one’s will or pleasure, for example, through surgery, and demanding that the State record this autonomous will of the individual in its registry offices” (page 96).
When situated in the highly conflicted anti-gender politics landscapes of present times, Dignitas Infinita can be seen as repositioning the Vatican as the condottiere of these “wars” that, to some extent, have expanded much beyond its control [4]. It negatively articulates longstanding doctrinal refutations about “gender theory”, “change of sex” and abortion” with Francis I’s “progressive” critiques of detrimental and despairing contemporary trends and conditions. In doing so, Dignitas Infinita provides additional fodder to fuel fierce anti-gender cyclones sweeping across the Americas and Europe and may function as bait to attract more progressive actors to these gender wars.
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Footnotes
[1] An adamant example is the 2020 Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights created by Trump administration. The call for a literal reading of the UDHR was also the leitmotif of the Summit of the Political Network for Values held at the United Nations in November 2023.
[2] Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education (2019). Man and Female He Created them – Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20190202_maschio-e-femmina_en.pdf
[3] To learn more about the resolution check the ILGA Report at https://ilga.org/news/united-nations-intersex-resolution-human-rights-council/
[4] Paternotte, D., 2023. Victor Frankenstein and its Creature: The many lives of ‘Gender Ideology’. International Review of Sociology. doi:10.1080/03906701.2023.2187833
