Sonia Corrêa
n April 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, the main doctrinal body of the Holy See, published the Declaration Dignitas Infinita. This new text can be read as the first guidelines on gender and related matters in which the imprimatur of Francis I is flagrant. In these novel doctrinal guidelines, “abortion”, “surrogate pregnancy”, “theory of gender” “change of sex” , “ abortion” but also “sexual abuse” and “violence against women” are grouped with other main crisis 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 sharp violations of ontological human dignity as defined by Vatican and equate with dramatic scourges of present time, in particular war. A through 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 at the current political moment, I thought it could be productive to engage in a first reading of its content.
Vatican texts are never singular but grounded in previous doctrinal elucubrations upon which their substratum is grounded and Dignitas Infinita is not an exception. In the context of this brief note, it is impossible to more fully delve into its deeper genealogy. While not losing sight of its many layers, a few of them will be examined in the next few pages.
The layers
In what can be considered its main layer, the Declaration diligently invest 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. And, as expected, 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 the 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 also vigorously states that ontological dignity as true dignity that can never be “canceled”.
Once these axioms are established, the text engages in landscaping the main crisis of our times and singles out twelve situations that, in its view, imply major violations of ontological dignity, as follows: poverty, war, the travail of migrants, human trafficking, sexual abuse, violence against women, abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia and assisted suicide, the marginalization of people with dis abilities, 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 imply a violation of ontological dignity, the Declaration spells out overarching doctrinal definitions. A first core elaboration aims at clarifying, in a very convoluted way, how ontological dignity is inscribed in bodily difference even though bodily “image” does not define 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 his 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 its 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” in order to contest the 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, the “critique of new rights” is one main argument brandished by anti-gender and anti-abortion rights forces. It is not therefore surprising that, in a subsequent step, Dignitas Infinita returns to the Universal Declaration of Human Right to state that, quite regrettably, its subsequent interpretations have misused 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 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”.
Having summarized these overarching doctrinal parameters let´s l briefly look into the specific contents concerning abortion rights, gender theorizing and gender reassignment:
What does the Declaration define in relation to “abortion”?
The argument developed in Dignitas Infinita to condemn abortion differs from previous Vatican documents in that it does not immediately and directly resorts to the grammar of the “culture of death”, that prevailed in other Vatican texts on the matter since, at least, the 1990s. But it staunchly criticizes the terminology “termination of pregnancy” as an euphemism whose purpose is to hide “dark realities” as, in its view: “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 is known as the ”social decriminalization of abortion” . Given the firm tone of the text, the new doctrinal guideline seems to imply emerges as 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 socio- cultural and legal transformation.
What does the Declaration define in relation “theory of gender” and “sex change”?
With regard to these other topics, a few preliminary observations should be made. Firstly, the text does not use to the accusatory category “gender ideology” but “theory of gender”. This is not exactly new, as this term was central 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 in 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 inscription in this new doctrinal guideline whose doctrinal status is higher, can eventually be read a definitive semantic turn. If this is so, this shift could be eventually signaling towards a softening of the Vatican´s language used to refute gender. However –and perhaps more realistic- it sounds more as a symptom of a firm disposition on the part of the Vatican to more directly invest in frontal contestations of critical gender knowledge production. Then, and not less relevant, in explaining why “gender theory” as a form of knowledge is antagonistic to ontological dignity, Dignitas Infinita deploys the following argumentation:
“… 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”.
This view is not exactly surprisingly as it is aligned with the pope´s frequent statements expressing tolerance towards homosexuality. But subsequently and quite abruptly, the text returns the “problem of new rights” in the following terms:
“…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, the text moves towards making clear why, in the Vatican’s view, “gender theory” is totally 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”. And, 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, with regard specifically to 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.
Not surprisingly, but worth noting, Dignitas Infinita does give any considerations to the “problem” of compulsory surgical interventions imposed on intersex people (most often children) to adjust their bodies to the dominant norm of binary sexual difference. This missing point is revealing of the inherent incoherence of the doctrinal guideline on “change of sex” because this is exactly what these surgeries do to intersex bodies whose sex characteristics that were determined at the moment of conception. This incongruence is also what lurks beneath the bold efforts made by the Vatican, in the Human Right Council debates to prevent the approval of Resolution A/HRC/55/L.9 , approved in April 2024, which fully recognizes the human rights of intersex persons, including the right to be protected from coercive surgical interventions1.
To (partially) conclude
Dignitas Infinita places “abortion”, “gender theory” and “sex change” into an overarching frame that addresses the major crises of the contemporary world, equating these realities with the flagellum of poverty, war and the drama of migration (amongst other conditions viewed as violations of ontological dignity).
In relation to abortion, the Declaration clearly calls for the containment of what is calls the popular and legal normalization of the violation of the right to life implied in “termination of pregnancy”. In also incites sharp divisions in relation to “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 diverge from the norm while abhorring the instability of gender identity as a violation of ontological human dignity.
These are the novelties of Francis I political approach to the “troubling problems of gender”. On the other hand, the Declaration is also more of the same, as it expands on Ratzinger’s elucubrations from the 1980s that would later give rise to the “gender phantasm” ghost”. It recaptures and adjourns– as Vatican thinkers have always done when addressing matters of gender — Thomas Aquinas’ conceptual frame to address sexual difference and procreation.
When we situated in relation the conflicted present anti-gender politics landscapes, Dignitas Infinita can be read as a repositioning of the Vatican as the condottiere of these “wars” that, to some extent, have expanded much beyond its control. In negatively articulating longstanding doctrinal refutations in relation to “gender theory”, “change of sex and abortion” with Francis I “progressive” critiques of detrimental and despairing contemporary trends and conditions, Dignitas Infinita provides additional fodder to fuel fierce anti-gender cyclones sweeping across the America´s and Europe. This rearticulation of the Vatican´s “gender doctrine” is at once “novel” and “more of the same”. Most principally, despite its predominantly soft tone it incites divisiveness and confusion.
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Footnote
1 To learn more about the resolution check the ILGA Report at https://ilga.org/news/united-nations-intersex-resolution-human-rights-council/