The Vatican publishes "Dignitas Infinita". Gender change, gender theory and digital violence violate human dignity
On April 8th, the Vatican released the "Dignitas Infinita" Declaration regarding human dignity, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, reiterating its stance against gender alterations, gender theory, surrogacy, abortion and euthanasia.
The document, the result of five years of work, includes papal teaching from the past decade on "serious violations" of human dignity: from war to poverty, from violence against migrants to violence against women, from human trafficking to sexual abuse, abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia and assisted suicide, rejection of people with disabilities, gender theory, gender change and "digital violence".
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In the "incomplete" list provided, among violations of human dignity, alongside abortion, euthanasia and surrogacy, are war, the tragedy of poverty and migrants, as well as human trafficking.
The new text thus contributes to overcoming the dichotomy between those who focus exclusively on defending life about to be born or dying, forgetting so many other attacks on human dignity, and vice versa, between those who focus only on defending the poor and migrants, forgetting that life must be defended from conception to its natural end, according to the Vatican News website in Romanian.
The document marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Poverty, war and human trafficking
The document speaks of the "tragedy of poverty", "one of the greatest injustices of the contemporary world", of war, considered "a tragedy that denies human dignity", but also of "the suffering of migrants", whose "lives are endangered because they no longer have the means to start a family, work or feed themselves".
The Declaration then focuses on "human trafficking", which has reached "tragic proportions" and is defined as "an ignoble activity, a shame for our societies that call themselves civilized", inviting "exploiters and customers" to seriously examine their conscience.
The document also calls for combating phenomena such as "trafficking in human organs and tissues, sexual exploitation of children and girls, slavery-like labor conditions, including prostitution, drug and arms trafficking, terrorism and organized international crime".
It also speaks of "sexual abuse", which leaves "deep scars in the hearts of those who suffer it", but also of the discrimination against women and violence against them, citing among the latter "forcing abortion, which affects both the mother and the child, so often to satisfy the selfishness of men" as well as "the practice of polygamy". The document also condemns "femicide".
Abortion and surrogacy
Abortion is strongly condemned. "Among all the crimes that man can commit against life, induced abortion has characteristics that make it particularly serious and deplorable".
"The defense of life about to be born is intimately linked to the defense of any human right", the Vatican emphasizes. The Vatican also rejects surrogacy, "whereby the child, of immense dignity, becomes a mere object", a practice "which gravely offends the dignity of women and children... based on exploiting the material need of the mother. A child is always a gift and never the object of a contract", the document emphasizes.
The list then mentions euthanasia and assisted suicide, reminding that "suffering does not cause the sick person to lose that dignity which is intrinsic and inalienable to them" and that "life is a right, not death, which must be accepted, not induced".
Gender theory
After reaffirming that unfair discrimination and especially any form of aggression and violence must be avoided against homosexual persons, denouncing as "contrary to human dignity" the fact that in some places these individuals "are imprisoned, tortured and even deprived of their right to life", the document criticizes gender theory, "which is extremely dangerous because it erases differences with the claim to make everyone equal".
The Vatican recalls that "to want to dispose of oneself, as gender theory prescribes... means nothing but yielding to the ancient temptation of the human being to make themselves God". Gender theory "wants to deny the greatest of the possible differences existing among living beings: the sexual one".
The Vatican also has a negative view of gender change, even if "this does not exclude the possibility that a person affected by anomalies of the genital organs already evident at birth or developing later, may choose to receive medical assistance to resolve these anomalies".
Digital violence
The list of "serious violations of human dignity" also includes "digital violence", the document invoking "new forms of violence spread through social networks, for example through digital harassment and the spread of pornography and exploitation of individuals for sexual purposes or through internet gambling".
The Declaration concludes with the call to "put respect for human dignity beyond all circumstances, at the center of commitment to the common good and of any legal system", according to the cited source.
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