Vatican Announces Opposition to Anti-LGBTQ Laws, Surrogacy, and Gender-Affirming Surgery
On April 8, the Vatican issued a new document, the Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity, approved by Pope Francis. The 20-page Dignitas Infinita, five years in the crafting, makes a range of statements on what the Vatican calls “human dignity” issues: poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, abortion, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, the death penalty and gender-reassignment surgery.
For queer and trans people, the document provides, yet again, seemingly conflicting
statements regarding LGBTQ people and the Church. The document states that the Church believes that gender fluidity and transition surgery as well as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination — which gay and lesbian couples often use to create their families — are ultimately affronts to human dignity, yet it makes the same statement about anti-LGBTQ laws.
The sex a person is assigned at birth, the document argues, is an “irrevocable gift from God” and “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” The document explains that individuals who “desire a personal selfdetermination, as gender theory prescribes,” in turn put themselves at risk of “the age-old temptation to make oneself God.”
It seems a contradiction when as recently as November, Pope Francis widened the door to acceptance of trans people within the Church by announcing that trans people can be baptized and be godparents. As GLAAD noted, “Pope Francis' ministry has been defined by putting people at the center, and he has met with and blessed transgender people, insisting that they are part of the Church and should be included
and treated with respect. This document from the hardliners in the Vatican reveals the threat they feel from the Pope's inclusion and acceptance.”
As it is laid out, the document is an indepth explanation of the Church's view on human dignity and its many facets, most notably in protecting vulnerable people and populations. The Vatican stated that in the current climate of upheaval, restating where the Church stands on these issues was an important point to be made.
The Vatican also takes a strong stand against anti-LGBTQ laws in the new document and particularly cites and chastises Catholic groups that support such laws, like those in the U.S. The U.S. funded such programs during the Trump administration via then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's USAID programs.
The Vatican is against laws that criminalize same-sex acts, even when Catholic groups support those laws, the head of the Vatican's doctrine office said. Like the laws recently enacted in Uganda, Russia and Ghana, the head of the Vatican's doctrine office said April 8, “punish LGBTQ people,” which is against the church's stance on LGBTQ+ people as defined by Pope Francis.