New Vatican document on human rights condemns gender theory, digital violence

The Vatican has released a new document updating the Church’s teachings on human rights, touching on contemporary issues such as abortion, gender theory, sex change and digital violence.

The Holy See, in its press statement, said the Declaration "Dignitas infinita" (Infinite dignity in English) took the Church’s doctrinal watchdog, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, five years to complete. It said it builds on the past decade’s papal teaching on war, poverty, violence against migrants, violence against women, abortion, surrogate motherhood, euthanasia, gender theory and digital violence.

The four-chapter document dedicates the first three chapters discussing the Church’s fundamental principles on human rights while the last chapter discusses "some grave violations of human dignity" which includes recent recent papal teachings on bioethics. 

The "non-exhaustive" list of “violations of human dignity” mentioned were abortion, euthanasia and surrogate motherhood alongside war, poverty and human trafficking.

The declaration begins by insisting that the "ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ".

This is an "inalienable dignity”, corresponding to "human nature apart from all cultural change". It is a "gift" and therefore present in "an unborn child, an unconscious person, or an older person in distress, it said.

Dignitas infinita added that the Church “proclaims the equal dignity of all people, regardless of their living conditions or qualities" , and she does so on the basis of biblical revelation: women and men are created in the image of God.

It noted that "the concept of human dignity is also occasionally misused to justify an arbitrary proliferation of new rights … as if the ability to express and realize every individual preference or subjective desire should be guaranteed."

The Declaration listed two groups of violations: those that violate human dignity and those that violate life.

Offenses against human dignity include "subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, degrading working conditions where