This past week marked the release of the Vatican bulletin titled Dignitas Infinita, or “Infinite Dignity”.  Our worship community is more like a small family currently, so when one brings to attention the nature of this document, as a priest in the community it falls on me to address with a statement.

The bulletin talks about dignity.  Specifically, it outlines types of dignity being manifestations of the innate type of dignity granted to us by God, included in the nature of who we are as created beings in the image of God.  It goes on to point out the dangers of certain trains of thought to the definition of dignity.

With regard to surrogacy:

49. First and foremost, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child. Indeed, every child possesses an intangible dignity that is clearly expressed—albeit in a unique and differentiated way—at every stage of his or her life: from the moment of conception, at birth, growing up as a boy or girl, and becoming an adult. Because of this unalienable dignity, the child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver. Moreover, acknowledging the dignity of the human person also entails recognizing every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation. Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a “right to a child” that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life.

Was not Joseph a surrogate father?  In deed, could it not be argued that the Blessed Lord was not conceived in the most conventional of ways?  Which is not to compare IVF to the Immaculate Conception certainly!  But rather, should we not accept that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was not conceived in the “natural way”?

Then, with regard to gender theory:

55. The Church wishes, first of all, “to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.”^[101] For this reason, it should be denounced as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.

The bulletin goes on to explain that, while the Vatican accepts the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights (the bulletin, by the way, was released on the 75^th anniversary of the Declaration), it also sees that certain principle theories, such as gender theory,  have twisted the essence of the document, claiming rights in a way that the UN Declaration never intended:

56…. Regrettably, in recent decades, attempts have been made to introduce new rights that are neither fully consistent with those originally defined nor always acceptable. They have led to instances of ideological colonization, in which gender theory plays a central role; the latter is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”

The Church, referencing “ideological colonization”, in this sense, is something philosophers refer to as “self-referentially absurd”.  Or, in layman’s terms, “pot calling the kettle black”, further enforced by a claim of cancel culture. 

The bulletin goes on:

58. Another prominent aspect of gender theory is that it intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them. In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvelous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world.

59. In this sense, respect for both one’s own body and that of others is crucial in light of the proliferation of claims to new rights advanced by gender theory. This ideology “envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”^[103] It thus becomes unacceptable that “some ideologies of this sort, which seek to respond to what are at times understandable aspirations, manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised. It needs to be emphasized that ‘biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.’”^[104] Therefore, all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected: “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.”^[105] Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity.

My understanding of gender theory is that it doesn’t intent to deny sexual differences, but affirm and celebrate them.  It doesn’t in any way invalidate heterosexuality; rather, gender theory instead challenges us to accept that there is more diversity than we expected.  I agree that biological sex and gender can’t be separated, that these are works of God’s creation.  Where I disagree is when the bulletin says “Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity” it stops short of pointing out that we may, in fact, as trans people be called to bring forth the fullness of our identity in the same way Michelangelo claimed that he revealed the beauty of the sculpture within a piece of marble by removing the stone around it.  This is not a denying of God’s creation:  rather, it is God asking us:  how far will you go to be your true self, your true reflection of He Who Created  you?

60. The dignity of the body cannot be considered inferior to that of the person as such. The Catechism of the Catholic Church expressly invites us to recognize that “the human body shares in the dignity of ‘the image of God.’”^[106] Such a truth deserves to be remembered, especially when it comes to sex change, for humans are inseparably composed of both body and soul. In this, the body serves as the living context in which the interiority of the soul unfolds and manifests itself, as it does also through the network of human relationships. Constituting the person’s being, the soul and the body both participate in the dignity that characterizes every human.^[107] Moreover, the body participates in that dignity as it is endowed with personal meanings, particularly in its sexed condition.^[108] It is in the body that each person recognizes himself or herself as generated by others, and it is through their bodies that men and women can establish a loving relationship capable of generating other persons. Teaching about the need to respect the natural order of the human person, Pope Francis affirmed that “creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.”^[109] It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.

Before we receive the sacrament of baptism, we are called to learn about the faith we wish to enter into.  We are asked questions before receiving the baptismal waters, and once we do, we are transformed.

1263 By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin.⁶⁶ In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.

The sacrament itself calls us to recall the waters of the flood, where God re-created the world with waters of the flood.

The people were transformed at Pentecost by the Holy Spirit, speaking in languages they knew not that others might know and understand the Word.

Our church, the Eucharistic Catholic Church, has always maintained that the views in the bulletin, written by Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández, and Msgr. Armando Matteo, prefect and secretary for the Doctrinal Section respectively.

How are we then to regard Pope Francis, who in the prayers of our Mass is included weekly?

I have noticed over the years that Francis has been Pope that the church has in many ways become more open to the L, G, and B.  When speaking of doctrinal attitudes and teachings, the L, G, and B are always referenced prominently.  The T however is not included.

And by the way, this is a description of what I suspect, not an endorsement.

Francis, I suspect, is far more liberal in his thinking than the Roman curia will allow.  I suspect Francis is, in fact, more in line with those who decried the publication of this bulletin.  As Pontiff of the Roman Church, he must endorse documents like “Dignitas Infinita” as the pressure of the curia dictates.

Regardless, this document sheds a poor light on how the church views Trans people.  Our church, while Catholic in nature, and Roman in expression, does not endorse these views.

In the years of the Queer Liberation movement, the eagerness to fight for the rights and dignities of our communities often moved forward while ignoring the needs, rights, tears, and shouts from our most vulnerable, most valuable, and most marginalized communities within the greater Queer world.  As I have asked in the past, I ask now for the forgiveness of our Trans siblings.  We have wronged you by our omission and we have made ourselves weaker because of it.  When we fail to embrace you, we fail to embrace the fullness of our struggle.  But more importantly, we fail to embrace Christ in you.

The church we are a part off doesn’t have government.  It doesn’t have cardinals.  It has clerics, bishops, monastics, hermits, deacons:  all of us, congregants, act in consensus as I hope the earlies of churches did, to recognize where we are needed to act, to advocate, to embrace, or to remain silent.  Dignity belongs to us all, regardless of who we are, where we are, or how our lives express the Divine Nature of God.  God constantly creates, and as scripture has shown, re-creates when needed.

We are the church who embraces Sts. Bacchus and Sergius, Sts. Felicity and Perpetua.  We are the community who embraces Our Lady of Guadalupe, who transformed herself that the world might better know the Word of God, the redemption of Christ. 

We will continue to include Francis, and all future pontiffs, in our prayers as we, in exile, hope that one day the fullness of Christ will once again enter the heart of the throne of St. Peter.