The Vatican declared gender-affirming procedures and surrogacy to be grave human rights violations, placing them on par with death and pregnancy as practices that reject God’s plan for individual life on Monday.
The Vatican’s theory business issued “Eternal Dignity”, a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five decades. After considerable updating in recent months, it was approved on March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its release.
In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender ideology”, or the idea that a person’s identity can be changed. It stated that God created medically distinct, independent beings called man and woman, and that no one should attempt to tinker with that idea or attempt to “make oneself God.”
“It follows that any sexual-change treatment, as a rule, risks threatening the special respect the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.
It distinguished between gender-affirming clinics, which it rejected, and “genital anomalies” that are present at birth or that develop afterward. Those anomalies may become “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.
Activists for LGBTQ+ Catholics soon criticized the report as outdated, dangerous, and contrary to the expressed purpose of recognizing the “infinite respect” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.
“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.
The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.
After he wrote a more potent document granting blessings to same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops all over the world, especially in Africa, he had cast it as a bit of a nod to conservatives.
And yet, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ claim in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime,” which is now a part of the Vatican’s doctrinal teaching.
The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”
The document is essentially a rehash of previously stated Vatican positions, seen from the perspective of human dignity. It updates well-known Catholic doctrine that opposes abortion and euthanasia and includes some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the dangers to human dignity caused by war, human trafficking, and forced migration.
It asserts that surrogacy violates both the child’s dignity and that of the surrogate mother in a recently articulated position.
The Vatican document claims that the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) birth and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and the receiver, despite the attention that has been paid to the possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates.
According to the statement, “the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be converted into a ‘right to a child’ without regard for the child’s dignity as the child’s recipient of the gift of life.”
In 2019, the Congregation for Catholic Education insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life, rejecting the notion that people could choose or change their genders. The Vatican had previously made its most explicit statement regarding gender.
The more reputable Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new document uses that year’s 2019 education document, but it modifies the tone. In significance, it doesn’t repeat a previous doctrinal document’s 1986 phrase, which stated that homosexuals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity but that homosexual behavior is “intrinsically disordered.”
Fernandez made the remarks at a press conference to discuss the document, which acknowledged the strong use of “intrinsically disordered” language and the possibility of using “other words” to express the church’s vision of sex as the ideal union of husband and wife to bring about new life.
“It’s true, the expression could find other words to express this mystery,” he said.
The Rev. James Martin, who has called for the Catholic Church to extend greater outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, said the gender terminology was similar to past declarations. He applauded the law and the use of violence against LGBTQ+ people, though.
That is not unacceptable because it violates human dignity to repeat it too frequently. The LGBTQ person, like everyone else, has infinite dignity,” he said in an email.
Francis has emphasized that the Catholic Church must welcome all of the LGBTQ+ children while ministering to trans Catholics under the auspices of his papacy.
But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has criticized specifically the “ideological colonization” of the West in developing nations, where development aid is occasionally preconditioned on Western conceptions of gender and reproductive health.
Transgender activists immediately criticized the document, saying it was “hurtful” and lacking in the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially when it distinguishes transgender people from intersex people.
The notion that gender-affirming health care, which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and allowed them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities, and (God) might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is hurtful and dangerously ignorant, according to Mara Klein, a nonbinary transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.
According to Klein, “watching that, in contrast, surgical interventions on intersex people, which are frequently performed without consent, especially on minors, often cause enormous physical and psychological harm for many intersex people dating,” are positively evaluated.
The publication of the document comes at a time when transgender people face some criticism, including in the United States, where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of legislation that would restrict access to medical care for transgender youths and, in some cases, transgender adults. In addition, bills to govern youths’ pronouns, sports teams, and bathrooms at school are also under consideration, as well as some books and school curriculums.
We are confronted with a church that ignores the beauty of creation that can be seen in our biographies, Klein wrote in an email.
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