New Ways Ministry: Vatican Document on Human Dignity Fails LGBTQ+ People
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
Today, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a new document on human dignity, titled Dignitas Infinita, which includes sections about gender identity, gender transitions, and other LGBTQ+ issues.
The following is a statement from Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry’s Executive Director, about the document:
The new Vatican document, Dignitas Infinita, fails terribly by offering transgender and nonbinary people not infinite, but limited human dignity. 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.
In its approach to gender, the document relies on the outdated theology of gender essentialism which claims that a person’s physical appearance is the central evidence of a person’s natural gender identity. This physicalist perspective prevents the Vatican from embracing the growing consciousness that a person’s gender includes the psychological, social, and spiritual aspects naturally present in their lives.
Far from being an individual’s choice, gender identity is based on a discovery of who God created each of us to be accounting for factors other than the physical appearance of one’s body.
The document’s attempt to uphold and defend human dignity is weakened by its stunning lack of awareness of the actual lives of transgender and nonbinary people The Vatican’s arguments and conclusions on gender identity and gender transitions indicate that the authors failed to consult developments about gender in the biological, psychological, and social sciences. Worse yet, it shows the authors did not listen intently to the lived experience of people who have discovered, often after painful and torturous journeys, that God has naturally created them with a gender identity beyond social expectations, usually based on physical appearance.
By simply dismissing this growing awareness of the realities of gender as “gender theory,” the authors of this document abdicate their responsibility to uphold transgender and nonbinary people’s dignity. By cavalierly categorizing LGBTQ+ inclusion as a Western phenomenon imposed in a colonialist fashion on other cultures, the authors ignore the anthropological fact, documented by many scholars even before the current day, that cultures around the world and throughout history have acknowledged and celebrated gender identities beyond the church’s claims of male/female gender binary.
If ideological gender theory and colonization exist in the world, it exists in the schema outlined by this document a person’s gender is based on physical appearance, and that only two genders, male and female, exist in human reality. Recent discoveries and experiences show that the poverty of church leaders’ thinking about transgender and nonbinary denies the rich diversity with which God created the world.
The document should not be dismissed as simply an abstract theological conversation with few human consequences. Rather, the Vatican is again supporting and propagating ideas that lead to real physical harm to transgender, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ people. They are harmed by the very violence which this document condemns in economic, psychological, spiritual, social, and most tragically, physical forms, resulting in grave damage that often leads to death.
While Vatican officials do not yet understand transgender and nonbinary’s people infinite dignity, the Catholic faithful have already done so. Catholics, especially the laity but even some bishops, have come to know, accept, and love people with diverse gender identities. Like many instances in the past, the LGBTQ-positive faithful will call on church officials to better apply Catholic social teaching to the realities of gender and sexual identities today.
—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, April 8, 2024
i can’t say i’m shocked, but i am pretty disappointed. lector, EM for 35 years. this was their window to maybe get me to try Mass again. but, no, i’m good hanging out in my garden and exploring being a Druid.
Thank you for your analysis of this recent document. I think you are correct with your comment about current “colonization”, that cultures around the world, before colonization experienced a variety of approaches to gender. I recall from my experience with the Lakota tribe here in the U.S., that there were people called “winktés” who crossed lines between male and female, and were accepted. Human life and culture is, and has been in the past, more complex than this current document or other ecclesial documents, seem to realize.
Well said Francis! You speak for all of us here. Is it any wonder that people walk away from the Church when our very humanity is denigrated as less than the infinite value it has in God and our world! This document is NOT received!
Paragraph 55 covers sexual orientation with the same very, very low red line as before: basically, don’t use violence against LGB people. I do not see the same called out explicitly for people with different gender identity… The text refers again to ‘unjust discrimination’, which implies that some ‘just’ discrimination is permitted. In line with examples given in the 1986 letter for ‘just’ discrimination, one can expect that firings of LGBTQ teachers from Catholic schools will continue unabated. Where’s human dignity in that?
Further, given the magisterium’s distinction between same-sex orientation (described as something to be pitied) and same-sex acts (presented as sinful and forbidden) I find some implications of this paragraph rather concerning. For instance, does the last sentence about people who are imprisoned, hurt, or killed “solely because of their sexual orientation” imply that all of that is ok if there are ‘acts’ involved as well? While I hope that it’s not what they mean here, sadly, it is what some people may construe based on other church documents.
At a minimum, this text is careless.
And that’s just for the 1st paragraph of the section on gender theory… It would take pages to analyze all the stuff that jumps out as plain wrong from a simple first reading. I’m sure there will be plenty of ink to analyze more in depth.
Astonishingly I’m finding myself in agreement with the conservatives when they say that these DDF documents are poorly written and weak.
WOW! and the Church leadership wonders WHY so many Catholics are leaving the Church?????? and they continue to NEVER see their omission/commission as them being responsible, but blame US again and again????? I choose to follow Jesus and leave all this patriarchal hurtful posturing and false theology let alone false or absent understanding of the real issues continue to damage our souls and shame/guilt us to the cross over and over again with Jesus. However, I would rather spend one moment with Jesus on the Cross than continue for centuries more of this HATE message from Mother??? Church. Some Mother. We pray and pray and pray and pray for Her healing again and again and again.
Thank you very much for the article.
While I too welcome the general focus on upholding dignity, I find much about the document odd. It talks about not discriminating in relation to sexual orientation but it is not clear what its position on discrimination towards trans people is? It presents ‘sex change’ as something someone should not do as a matter of course or just as a choice – but this does not remotely describe the experiences of trans people or why their seek such interventions.
Many of the other things condemned in the document are condemned because they result in someone dying or their lives being significantly limited. Trans people transition because they want to live decent lives. To me this seems very different.
At the very least I wish the document could have recognised that there is so much we still do not know about trans and non-binary issues, especially from the viewpoint of biological development.
Thanks again for the article and for your continued efforts to uphold the dignity of all.
How painful it is to read this and I can only imagine how it affects those who are members of the subject group. Imagine living your whole life not being believed of who you are. What a nightmare. Please continue studying this phenomenon. Education and truth are life saving for many.
From CNN
April 7. Vatican Pool/Getty Images
CNN
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The Vatican has issued a strong warning against “gender theory” and said that any “sex-change intervention” risks threatening “the unique dignity” of a person, in a new document signed off and approved by Pope Francis.
It is so the exact opposite it reaffirm our unique dignity
Thank you, Frank, for your helpful article. It is painful to watch the contortions and distortions. What is remotely Christian about relegating other people to the margins?
The church continues to threaten the safety and lives of transgender people.
As a dad of an adult transgender daughter I pray this ends.
I can’t believe Pope Francis accepted this document on a topic of such importance. How many doctors, experts in this area, and Trans individuals were interviewed and were there women, and Trans individuals as part of the committee. A very incomplete document lacking an educated understanding of this life issue and lacks charity and empathy. B
Thank you for standing with those of us in the LGBTQAI community. Strong allies like you give us hope. The greatest hope comes from God who sustains us and blesses us. Some day truth and love will prevail even more powerfully than now. Until then my appreciation goes out to all who love us regardless of any churches condemnation.