The latest papal declaration on human dignity, <em>Dignitas Infinita</em>, was issued in response to the 75th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, but it reiterates more fundamental truths. It quotes St Paul VI, who affirmed that “no anthropology equals that of the Church regarding the human person – particularly concerning the person’s originality, dignity, the intangibility and richness of the person’s fundamental rights, sacredness, capacity for education, aspiration to a complete development, and immortality.” That last element is of course absent from the UN Declaration, but it reminds us that human beings are not just endowed with dignity but destined for glory as well.
<em>Dignitas Infinita</em> acknowledges the classical definition of a person as an “individual substance of a rational nature”. As an “individual substance” human persons possess their dignity from the simple fact of their existence. And although we are “rational”, even if our intellectual capacities are impaired, we still have that primal dignity by dint of being human. But the document also reminds us that the Christian conception of humanity is even more remarkable, because we are made, scripture tells us, in the “image and likeness of God”, and that dignity is inviolable, bestowed by God, “neither claimed nor deserved”. This is a ringing affirmation of our common worth – with profound implications. For instance, the document quotes Benedict XVI’s observation to economists that “the economy and finance do not exist for their own sake ... their sole end is the human person and his or her total fulfilment in dignity.” Man is not made for the economic system; the economic system is made for man.
This being Pope Francis, <em>Dignitas Infinita</em> also deals with the goodness of all creatures besides man. The Holy Father recalls his earlier insistence that “each of the various creatures, willed in its own being, reflects in its own way a ray of God’s infinite wisdom and goodness.” Man must therefore respect the particular goodness of every creature; “it is not a matter of indifference to us that so many species are disappearing”. It is very much in the spirit of St Francis to be reminded of the goodness of mastodons and weevils; if we allow whole species to disappear on our watch, we are undoing something of the work of the Creator.
The Pope deals with the implications of human dignity in the ways that it is abused, for instance, in the poverty that is due to injustice and the sexual exploitation of the vulnerable. Here, rightly, <em>Dignitas Infinita</em> acknowledges that this latter phenomenon, which scars the victim, affects the Church too and “represents a serious obstacle to her mission”. The fight against this particular injustice starts “from within”. It is a matter for remorse and contrition that this did not happen sooner.
But the elements of <em>Dignitas Infinita</em> which inevitably attracted most attention were to do with euthanasia, abortion, surrogacy and gender ideology – where the Pope cannot be accused of deferring to contemporary sensibilities. He is combative in his approach to surrogacy, which turns the child into a “mere object” and commodifies babies. His Holiness is right to call for the international community to prohibit the practice universally. One of the most repugnant aspects of the transaction is the way in which poor women in poor countries are used as gestational repositories by rich couples in rich countries, usually carrying children that are not even genetically their own. It is a particularly traumatic kind of exploitation which, whether voluntarily undertaken or not, instrumentalises women.
As for sex change, the Pope unequivocally condemns it because it does not respect the natural order of the human person as it was created. This is not to say that trans people are not entitled to be cherished as human beings, because they are; it is to say that the natural order, in which God made us male or female, is not lightly to be rejected. Of course how we live out our identities as male or female varies across cultures, time and individual temperament – though it is most obviously lived out in generating children – but the realities of gender cannot be set aside at will. Benedict XVI identified the problem with the philosophy of gender identity back in 2012 and he has been proved right since.
Some of these issues have always been with us; not so the problems with digital violence, which give perennial sins such as slander and pornography new means of being propagated. Pope Francis rightly observes that “the digital environment is also one of loneliness, manipulation, exploitation and violence ... digital media can expose people to the gradual loss of contact with concrete reality, blocking the development of authentic relationships.” The threats to human dignity in our time are more bewildering than at any period in history, but <em>Dignitas Infinita</em> helps remind us of our inalienable worth.
<strong><strong>This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent and high-calibre counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click</strong> <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">here</mark></a>.</strong>
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