CCBI News: Dignitas Infinita Part 3

May 7, 2024

Dear Friends of CCBI,

Dignitas Infinita Part 3

In the last two News publications, we looked at the Instruction’s detailed observations on dignity, deemed necessary before reviewing current abuses of dignity. This is important, because unless there is an acceptance of the concept of inherent dignity in human beings, it could be and is otherwise argued that:

…dignity and rights are deduced from the individual’s capacity for knowledge and freedom, which not all humans possess. Thus, according to them, the unborn child would not have personal dignity, nor would the older person who is dependent upon others, nor would recognition of this dignity cannot be contingent upon a judgment about the person’s ability to understand and act freely…Without any ontological grounding, the recognition of human dignity would vacillate at the mercy of varying and arbitrary judgments. The only prerequisite for speaking about the dignity inherent in the person is their membership in the human species, whereby “the rights of the person are the rights of man. (N. 24)

Interpretations of Dignity

The Dicastery is concerned about some current interpretations of dignity:

It is as if the ability to express and realize every individual preference or subjective desire should be guaranteed. This perspective identifies dignity with an isolated and individualistic freedom that claims to impose particular subjective desires and propensities as “rights” to be guaranteed and funded by the community. However, human dignity cannot be based on merely individualistic standards,nor can it be identified with the psychophysical well-being of the individual. (N. 25)

Otherwise there arises a “self-referential and individualistic freedom that claims to create its own values,” and this absolute subjectivity would trump the objective categories of the Natural Law approach, where interconnectedness and relations with others for the common good hold sway.

Part 4 Violations of Dignity

Part 4 of the Declaration names grave violations of dignity, looking back to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council which emphasized that “all offenses against life itself, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and willful suicide” must be recognized as contrary to human dignity, as well as mutilation, physical and mental torture, undue psychological pressures, subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working conditions where individuals are treated as mere tools for profit rather than free and responsible persons. While re-stating this full list, the Dicastery adds the death penalty as “…violating the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances,” along with the practice of torture.

Some abuses are more relevant to bioethics, although not forgetting that all these grave violations are interconnected in their attack on human dignity, such as abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy and gender ideology.

Abortion

The document says of embryos and babies in the womb:

Nowadays, efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.” It must, therefore, be stated with all force and clarity, even in our time, that “this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. (N. 47)

Surrogacy

In N. 48 it quotes Pope Francis condemning surrogacy in a speech to the members of the Diplomatic Corps in January 2024:

In this regard, I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.

Gender Theory

Again quoting Pope Francis in N. 59, the Declaration adds:

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.” 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… all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected…Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity.

I saw an interesting article in Catholic World Report saying, “The Church, whose thought is formed in a framework of reason and fidelity to material reality, should be asking: Why is “gender” fluid, but race, ethnicity and old age are not?” A good question!

Euthanasia

Quoting its own document, Samaritanus Bonus, the Dicastery reminds us:

We must accompany people towards death, but not provoke death or facilitate any form of suicide. Remember that the right to care and treatment for all must always be prioritized so that the weakest, particularly the elderly and the sick, are never rejected. Life is a right, not death, which must be welcomed, not administered. And this ethical principle concerns everyone, not just Christians or believers.

Some commentators have observed that the Document does not say much that is new, but together with its wide-ranging commentary on egregious acts in Notes 35-62, I find that it combines Catholic Social teaching more intentionally with moral theology, an interesting development in itself. It reminds us that each and every abuse levied against a fellow human being gravely harms that person’s dignity, while harming all of us as members of the human race and of the body of Christ.

Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity (2 April 2024) (vatican.va)
Pope Francis, Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See (8 January 2024): L’Osservatore Romano (8 January 2024), 3.
Dignitas Infinita and gender ideology – Catholic World Report
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Samaritanus Bonus(14 July 2020), V, no. 1

Pope Francis’ Intentions for May:
For the formation of religious and seminarians

We pray that religious women and men, and seminarians, grow in their own vocations through their human, pastoral, spiritual and community formation, leading them to be credible witnesses to the Gospel.

Moira and Bambi