By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
VATICAN CITY/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The Vatican has effectively called the growing trend of sex-change surgery and surrogacy another threat to humanity.
In an opinion reviewed by Worthy News on Tuesday, the Vatican said that gender changes are on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that “violate God’s plan” for human life.
The death penalty is also cited, as it “violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances.”
The views are in the Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration prepared for five years.
After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved on March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication, according to sources familiar with the document.
In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican stressed the rejection of “gender theory” or the idea that one’s gender can be changed, calling that approach “extremely dangerous.”
It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings and added they must not tinker with that plan or try to “make oneself God.”
“EXTREMELY DANGEROUS”
Gender theory is “extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal,” the declaration said. The gender theory “intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”
Therefore, “all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman” are “to be rejected,” the document said.
Sex change, including through surgery, was judged negatively since it “risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
This does not mean, however, excluding the possibility that “a person with genital abnormalities that are already evident at birth or that develop later may choose to receive the assistance of healthcare professionals to resolve these abnormalities,” the Vatican said.
Yet the document also made clear that “every sign of unjust discrimination” against gay persons “is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.”
It is “contrary to human dignity that in some places” people “are imprisoned, tortured and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation,” the Vatican noticed.
Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has shown greater openness toward the LGBTQ+ community, including by recently lifting the ban on blessings by priests of same-sex couples.
DISPLEASING BISHOPS
That move displeased conservative bishops in the U.S., Africa, and elsewhere.
The document appeared to strike a balance between those concerns and the pontiff’s views on homosexuality and gender change.
In the “non-exhaustive” list, the declaration also mentioned abortion, euthanasia, and surrogate motherhood as “violations of human dignity” alongside war, the death penalty, poverty, and human trafficking, all themes raised previously by the pope as issues of concern.
The final item on the list is “digital violence,” as “New forms of violence are spreading through social media,” such as cyberbullying.
Additionally, “the internet is also a channel for spreading pornography and the exploitation of persons for sexual purposes or through gambling,” the document noticed.
Therefore, “respect for the dignity of the human person beyond all circumstances [should] be placed at the center of the commitment to the common good and at the center of every legal system,” the declaration concluded.
The declaration’s existence, in the works since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Pope Francis confidante.
The Vatican said it was published now to commemorate “the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and to reaffirm “the indispensable nature of the dignity of the human person in Christian anthropology.”
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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