The Vatican, a threat to human dignity, calls gender-affirming surgery a threat to human dignity

God's love is conditional, says the badly misnamed "Infinite Dignity" document

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The Catholic Church this week released a document called "Infinite Dignity" (Dignitas Infinita) that further solidifies its anti-LGBTQ bigotry by calling gender-affirming surgeries and the acknowledgement of trans identities “grave violations of human dignity.”

The title of the document is itself a lie; it suggests everyone has dignity… before listing exceptions to the rule. God’s love, we’re told, is unconditional. Now here’s the Catholic Church announcing conditions under which God’s love will not be granted.

All this from an organized crime syndicate best known for harboring predators and covering up child sexual abuse.

Pope Francis attends his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall (Image via Shutterstock)

Five years in the making—and approved by Pope Francis himself—the document makes clear the Church hasn’t learned a damn thing about why so many people are walking away from organized religion or why Catholicism specifically is seen as a problem in the world rather than a solution. The fact that this document comes after the Church allowed the blessing of same-sex couples and said trans people could be baptized is a reminder that those supposed steps forward were nothing more than window dressing, which is what critics always said.

This is what the Church really believes.

The document has its bright spots. It condemns war and torture and the death penalty, for example, and urges people to help the poor and those with disabilities. That’s nice. But it’s the rest of the declaration that’s getting all the attention—and for good reason. There are 66 sections in the document and the controversial bits don’t really get mentioned until the middle.

Section 47 calls abortion an “extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense” and says those who argue otherwise are guilty of “self-deception.” Ironically, Section 44 condemns “violence against women” without any regard for how forcing a woman to give birth to her rapist’s baby is indeed a(nother) form a violence against her.

Sections 48-50 oppose surrogacy—which allows infertile couples and same-sex couples, among others, to have children—and calls for the “international community to prohibit this practice universally.” Section 50 says the procedure “violates the dignity of the woman” even when it’s entirely consensual.

Sections 51-52 reject euthanasia and assisted suicide. As if forcing people who are suffering incurable diseases and living in constant pain to remain alive against their will is doing them a favor. Why should we let them suffer? The document says “suffering can become an opportunity to strengthen the bonds of mutual belonging and gain greater awareness of the precious value of each person to the whole human family”… which is a kind way to describe a method of torture.

Sections 55-60 are all about transgender people. Though, in a different kind of affront, the document never actually uses the T-word. Instead, it says that people who subscribe to “gender theory” are merely making a “personal self-determination,” as if being trans is a choice (not true). It also claims that sexual difference is the “greatest possible difference that exists between living beings” (not true and in denial of any sort of gender spectrum and that gender-affirming operations risk threatening a person’s “unique dignity” (not true and in fact completely backwards). By that logic, having an appendectomy or getting LASIK is also a violation of God’s perfect design because you’re altering what you were born with.

It’s everything you’ve come to expect from a group of elderly men who have never had (heterosexual) sex, much less understand the nuances of sex and gender, but pretend to be experts anyway. They have no moral authority. The only reason they’ve been held accountable at all is because of forces outside the Church. If anything, the document only reinforces what the Church has always said—because virtually none of it has changed over the years despite plenty of pro-Francis headlines suggesting he’s moving the Church in a more progressive direction.

Remember: According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (i.e. The Rulebook), homosexual acts are considered “intrinsically disordered.” The Vatican says trans identities seek to “annihilate the concept of nature.“

But there’s a large and growing divide between Church leaders and the people in the pews. Most practicing Catholics are far more tolerant than the pope or the Vatican. In the United States, 61% of Catholics support marriage equality while 76% believe society should be accepting of homosexuality. Meanwhile, 37% of U.S. Catholics acknowledge the existence of trans people, which is low but in line with Americans as a whole. It’s also 37% higher than the Vatican wants to see.

None of the breadcrumbs offered by the Church should be taken in good faith because they are opposed to human dignity when it involves people they don’t believe deserve it, like LGBTQ people and rape victims. Just a few months ago, a Catholic women’s college announced it would accept trans women only to reverse course after being reminded, presumably by donors, that this was a Catholic institution, goddammit.

It’s not just me saying that, either.

“As a transwoman, I am told by this document I am playing God and misapplying my moral freedom. This is not the reality of my life. My journey to self-acceptance was through realizing my self-worth as God’s creation,” wrote Madeline Marlett, leader of the Boston-based LGBTQ advocacy group DignityUSA, in a statement the same day.

“It is clear to me that the women and trans people who continue to identify as Catholic — despite documents like this completely disregarding our experiences — only do so because of a deep love for our faith and its traditions,” said the president of Catholics for Choice, Jamie Manson, in a statement issued on Monday.

“It is devastating that our leaders do not offer the same respect and love in return,” they added.

If the leaders of the Catholic Church don’t want you in the club, it’s time to walk away. At some point, staying in the Church because of a love of the faith and tradition is a self-inflicted wound. What exactly are you trying to preserve? The pope doesn’t want you there. The priests don’t want you there. The Vatican repeatedly sends out reminders about why it thinks certain people are garbage.

You can leave Catholicism and still believe in God if you want to. There’s no shame in that.

In the meantime, this document should be a signal to everyone that there’s no moderating faith-based extremism. It doesn’t matter if the pope’s tone is gentle, or the Vatican’s document is prefaced with sensible statements, or a few priests call for LGBTQ inclusion. The organization insists it will never change on the most basic, common-sense moral issues of our time, and they’ve planted their flag on the wrong side of them.

Unless more practicing Catholics reject the Church for good, none of that will ever change.

The final line of the document is a quotation from Pope Francis: “I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us.” That ought to be a rallying cry for trans people everywhere. No one, including the Catholic Church, can take away your dignity no matter how much social capital they spend attempting to do just that.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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