The Vatican has issued a stark warning against "gender theory" in a new document signed and approved by Pope Francis.
It says any sex-reassignment operation risks jeopardizing a person's "unique dignity".
Entitled "Dignitas Inifinita" ("Infinite Dignity"), the declaration focuses on a number of threats to human dignity, including poverty, the death penalty, war, assisted death, abortion, sexual assault and the abuse of women, Vatican News reported.
The text, published by the Vatican's doctrinal office today, states that attempts to obscure the "sexual difference between man and woman" must be rejected. "It follows that any gender reassignment intervention as a rule risks jeopardizing the unique dignity that the person has been given from the moment of conception," it added.
The document largely reiterates Catholic teaching on these topics, but does not attempt to isolate one issue - such as abortion - but states that it emphasizes the equal dignity of all people, regardless of their circumstances. With regard to abortions, the text categorically repeats what the pontiff has said in the past: "the protection of unborn life is closely related to the protection of every other human right."
The document also examines surrogacy, which it says "violates" the dignity of both the child and the woman, who "becomes a mere tool subject to the arbitrary profit or desire of other people". Pope Francis recently called for the practice of surrogacy to be banned.
In the past, the Pope has spoken out strongly against gender ideology, calling it "ugly" because it erases the differences between men and women. Francis described it as a form of "ideological colonization".
The document states that gender theory "intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living things: sexual", which is "the most beautiful and the strongest of them". It also says that sex-reassignment surgeries should be avoided because "the body serves as a living context in which the interior of the soul unfolds and manifests. But medical intervention is permitted for those who have 'gender abnormalities.'
Although Francis has criticized gender theory, he has shown support for transgender Catholics. The pontiff met regularly with a group of transgender Catholics from Torvaianica, south of Rome, invited them to lunch at the Vatican along with 1,200 marginalized and homeless people, and gave them front-row seats at one of those audiences.
The doctrinal office, known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith - currently headed by Francis' close ally, Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez - also recently allowed transgender people to act as godparents at baptisms and witnesses at marriages, a reversal from a 2015 decision .
Not all Catholics agree with the Vatican's criticism of gender theory. A Catholic LGBT+ group has labeled the Vatican Office of Education's 2019 document on gender identity a "harmful tool", while a deacon (a member of the clergy who can marry), father of a transgender daughter, expressed his concern.
The latest Vatican document points to various "violations" of human dignity, including in the digital world, listing trends in which people's private lives are exposed and "disclosed" anonymously. "Such trends represent the dark side of digital progress," the text notes.
It also mentions the death penalty, which "violates the inalienable dignity of every person". The pope changed Catholic teaching to make the death penalty "inadmissible," although he was criticized by some conservative Catholics for doing so. /BGNES
