The Vatican Claims Gender-Affirming Surgeries Are a Threat to Human Dignity

The Vatican issued a declaration on Monday claiming that gender-affirming surgeries risk threatening “the unique dignity” of people, further criticizing “gender theory” and rejecting attempts to obscure the “sexual difference between man and woman.”

The document from the Vatican’s doctrinal office titled “Dignitas Infinita”—Latin for “Infinite Dignity”—also reaffirmed the faith’s opposition to abortion and euthanasia. It comes as Pope Francis has faced an intense conservative backlash to recent liberalizing measures including allowing Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples.

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In a brief section on “Sex Change,” the declaration cites Francis’ view that “creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,” adding that “we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.” It therefore follows, the declaration reads, “that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”

It it appeared to be condemning specific kinds of gender-affirming operations but explained that a person born with “genital abnormalities” may choose to “receive the assistance of healthcare professionals to resolve these abnormalities,” and such assistance would “not constitute a sex change” that would risk threatening dignity.

The church also expressed misgivings about “Gender Theory.” Opening its discussion on the subject by noting that “every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration,” the declaration goes on to assert that the “scientific coherence” of the theory is “the subject of considerable debate among experts.”

“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God,” the declaration claims. It also says that “all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected.”

The document also reaffirmed Francis’ hostility to surrogate parenting—a practice which the pontiff in January branded a “deplorable” violation of the dignity of both mother and child, simultaneously calling for an international ban. The declaration said surrogacy makes a child become a “mere object” while the surrogate mother too becomes a “mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others.”

It also reiterated well-established doctrinal opposition to abortion and euthanasia (“a special case of human dignity violation that is quieter but is swiftly gaining ground”). The document also denounced cyberbullying, the hardships faced by migrants, and sexual abuse—the latter being an issue that the Vatican acknowledged as an issue which is “widespread in society” and which “also affects the Church.”

The declaration has been worked on for five years, said Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith. Francis had specifically asked for the document to “highlight topics closely connected to the theme of dignity, such as poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, and other themes,” Fernandez said.

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