When the always well-written and often wrongheaded New Yorker dislikes something, chances are good that I’ll like it – a principle that holds, with certain reservations, in the case of Dignitas Infinita, the April 8 “Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Human Dignity.” The Declaration underscores the Catholic Church’s commitment to the defense of every human life from conception until natural death, calls Catholics to compassionate care for the most vulnerable among us, defends the biblical idea of the human person as defined in Genesis 1:27-28, and offers a welcome critique of gender theory and the legion of demons it spawns (this last being, predictably, was what upset the New Yorker).
What’s not to like, then? Perhaps that’s putting it too sharply. The question is whether the Declaration could have been even better. I think that’s the case, and in several ways.
The Dog That Didn’t Bark. Dignitas Infinita has 116 endnote references to magisterial teaching cited in its text; over half of them are to documents and statements of Pope Francis. What is most striking, however, is the absence of any reference to Pope John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth) and its teaching that certain acts are intrinsically evil: gravely wrong by their very nature, irrespective of circumstances. That rationally demonstrable conviction – that some actions are wrong, period – is the ground on which the Church condemns sexual abuse, abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and modern forms of slavery like sex trafficking. These are all “grave violations of human dignity,” as the Declaration says. But why is that the case? Not because they offend our feelings or sensibilities about human dignity, but because we can know by reason that they are always gravely wrong. That should have been clearly stated.
Thus, the tenderness displayed during this pontificate toward moral theologians who reject the teaching of Veritatis Splendor on intrinsically evil acts weakens the defense of human dignity the Declaration wants to mount.
Defending Pre-Born Human Life. Dignitas Infinita is passionate in its rejection of abortion, and rightly links the abortion license to the erosion of “solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights.” The Declaration would have been strengthened, however, had it taken a lesson from the American bishops, who have made the pro-life case for over half a century by teaching two truths that any reasonable person can grasp: 1) It is a scientific fact, not a philosophical speculation, that the product of human conception is a human being with a unique genetic identity. 2) A just society will ensure that innocent human beings, in all conditions and stages of life, are protected in law. And while the Declaration concludes its section on abortion with a reference to St. Teresa of Calcutta’s “generous…commitment to the defense of every person conceived,” it makes no reference to the thousands of U.S. crisis pregnancy centers where women are offered care during pregnancy and support after a child is born. Thus, the essential pro-life complement to public advocacy on behalf of the unborn – solidarity with women in crisis pregnancies – is left understated in Dignitas Infinita.
The “Sex Reassignment” Fraud. The Declaration states, correctly, that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.” This statement might have been developed further. Most urgently, Dignitas Infinita ought to have explicitly condemned the “transitioning” of confused and suffering children and adolescents – the most despicable form of the “trans” phenomenon – as child abuse. If a report commissioned by the British National Health Service could call out this medical malpractice as thoroughly unwarranted by clinical evidence, surely the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith could have highlighted the dangers posed to children and adolescents by trans ideologues, woke physicians, and unscrupulous plastic surgeons.
There Are, In Fact, Just Wars. Quoting Pope Francis, the Declaration asserts that “it is very difficult, nowadays, to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war’.” One must respectfully and firmly disagree. Those “rational criteria” undergird Ukraine’s self-defense against a murderous aggression the Russian aggressor has openly declared to be genocidal. Those same criteria are the foundation of, and the moral framework for, Israel’s defensive war against Hamas, Hezbollah, and their Iranian sponsor. The just war criteria would buttress Taiwan’s resistance to any Chinese communist attempt to destroy the independence of the first Chinese democracy in millennia.
The global culture war is indeed a contest to defend and promote human dignity. Dignitas Infinita helps those of us fighting that unavoidable war. It could have helped more.
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George, is the Bible any clearer or less ambiguous than this document?
What is most striking, however, is the absence of any reference to Pope John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth) and its teaching that certain acts are intrinsically evil: gravely wrong by their very nature, irrespective of circumstances.
It is omitted for the same reason it has been omitted from every other document released under this pontificate: the pontiff doesn’t believe it.
It’s taken a long time for Weigel to even entertain minimal doubts about the self-evident reality to a non-Pollyanna that Francis is not exactly devoted to any sense of preserving received Catholic doctrine let alone Catholic wisdom.
The teaching of Veritatis Splendor is no longer needed when this pontificate offers Amoralist Laetitia in practice. To clearly restate that some acts are objectively evil is unpopular, unmerciful, rigid and judgmental. How ugly! Better to bypass purgation – as if the average adherent could always obey God’s Commandments…Objective truth is inadmissible!
“Christianity, as a moral system, is made up of two elements, beauty and severity; whenever either is indulged to the loss or disparagement of the other, evil ensues…We shall be sure to swerve from the narrow way which leads to life, if we indulge ourselves in what is beautiful while we put aside what is severe.” St. John Henry Newman
Not only does the suppressed Veritatis Splendor teach “that certain acts are intrinsically evil: gravely wrong by their very nature, irrespective of circumstances;” but clearly that this reality is grounded in our inborn and universal natural law–as well as being confirmed by revelation. And, that consistency between morality and revelation is now explicitly part of the Magisterium:
“This is the first time, in fact, that the MAGISTERIUM of the Church [caps added!] has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this [‘moral’] teaching, and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment necessary in practical and cultural situations which are complex and even crucial” (n. 115). AND, “The Church is no way [!] the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” (n. 95).
Dignitas Infinita dares not mention Veritatis Splendor, since such a reality-check would cancel Fiducia Supplicans’ arbitrary blank-check for blessing “irregular couples” as such.
sometimes, its not surprising but certainly sorrowed Judas-ian betrayal, when a shepherd is [voiced-]wolfed into a hireling, but so to when the sheep is wolfed into the goat….neither will be at the Beloved’s Right Hand in Glory….CINOs no, CIPRs yes…you do realize that all this is conjoined with AL and the Interview statements following ID with the advancing of the lesser dignity but infinitely worthy recognizing and legalization of same-sex unions/marriages even though they are not of the same or equal dignity of non-same sex unions/marriages of God – and why?? As AL reminds us their lesser but real dignity ‘is a true marriage’, ‘a real grace’, ‘is willed by God’, ‘the best their infinite yet lesser dignity can do now, for themselves and any children’ – ‘yes, go and continue in sin for the sake of yours and their infinite dignity’.
Are we pretending to not see the trees for the forest, or the forest for the trees???
When we have an interior docile, humble honesty, solely then we will be prepared for a renewal or revival of the Eucharistic Love of Obedience and Eucharistic Obedience of Love, unto death, even unto the Eucharistic death of the Cross, of the NewAdam and NewEve of Good Friday, and this is the Easter Day the Lord has made for daily living as we rejoice and are glad in ‘It’, and so is Heaven!
‘It’, is this Good Friday Eucharistic ‘Love of Obedience and Obedience of Love’ of the NewAdam and NewEve to reverse the loss of this by the old adam and eve, returning us to a greater glory of loving obedience than they had before the Fall in Original Holiness – which is man’s Felix Culpa! Now we can be happier in rejoicing and gladness for we have a more sublime loving obedience with and within the NewAdam and NewEve.
This is our daily Eucharistic bread of the Father’s Kingdom, more blessed than in Eden’s Paradise, where we now may live daily this loving obedience faithfully on earth as in Heaven with the NewAdam and New Eve, in the new Paradise of the Reconciliation of Calvary’s Paradise, like Saint Dismas! In this way we live Risen to Ascend with the God the Holy Spirit, truly in deeds of the NewAdam and New Eve’s loving Obedience to mounting with Them with shouts of rejoicing and gladness to the Throne of the Beloved in the Heavenly Easter Jerusalem!
There is no dignity in evil nor delusion, no matter how you might want to infuse delusion with a false understanding of grace.
Homosexualism can not reconcile with truth, goodness or unity. They are trying to insinuate that there is an intrinsic beauty that gives it a redeemable credence and value that attains or will attain back to truth, goodness and unity and be commensurate. Of course such a thing is all wrong. It wants to imply that such ideas a) were overlooked by Aquinas and b) are contained in Bonaventure; still, neither of these “up-datings” can be sustained.
Nor is there any advanced Christian theology to admit what is being professed for “inclusive” homosexualism.
‘ The very suffering of anyone in this state will show her she is not to blame; and she is not to worry or weary herself over it, as it is without remedy for the time being. ….. Rather than write more about it, I will leave it for you to think about; for howsoever much your thoughts may wander, between such a Son and such a Father, there must needs be a Holy Spirit. ‘
– Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection
I always learn when I read Mr Weigel.
What troubles me is that the world’s most powerful person, blessed by the Pope, promotes the killing and mutilation of babies. I’m not sure how you say it in Latin, but both men should say “Don’t “.
A Shrine I attended years ago had a plaque on the entry wall. It said, “
You can’t be Catholic and be pro abortion”. It would be wonderful if someone in the Catholic hierarchy would speak so plainly. Instead, the silence is deafening and prominent Catholics promote abortion. I do not want them excommunicated or even publicly mentioned. I want someone to say they are wrong.
The Church has plainly taught that those who teach and defend abortions are in mortal sin. All Catholics are obligated to know this. Knowing politicians like President Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who have instructed by the American bishops, deny this are are in mortal sin. The Church teaches that those who are in mortal sin and who resist the Grace of God Who leads us to all truth, may well find themselves in Hell. I pray and hope they repent before it is too late. Padre Pio once said to those sinners who do not believe in Hell will know when they get there. When are in our eighties, the end times are close.
Concerning just war. Traditionally, just-war theory is consists in two parts: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The former classifies the criterion under which it is possible to start a war, e.g., defense against an aggressor. The latter describes the morally right behavior to be kept in a war.
I agree that the theory elaborated centuries ago concerning the ius ad bellum are still valid and the examples give by Weigel confirm this.
I’m less convinced that the ius in bello theory is still valid. It was elaborated when the most lethal weapon was bow and arrows, not rockets and drones
Surely when one is immersed in war by whatever conflux good or bad, one still has to be guided morally. The contexts will no doubt be difficult even complex but only good Christian morality and Christian disposition, substantively obeyed, can ameliorate the acts and the consequences.
Deeper insight can be found through the witness of Kapaun who can serve as an inspiration to the individual soldier. Things happen dynamically in the field; so it is imperative to be able to prepare one’s views ahead of entering war.
WWI was stalling going through 2015-early 2016 because the soldiery would not adopt a killing mentality. At least on the British side, men were court-martialed and executed for this. The Allies repeatedly resisted the Pope’s call for peace settlement and the Brits began intensive training in “furia” advocated by the French, for “killing Germans”. This was also a way to “weed out non-performers”.
Furia was developed by Petain and accelerated by Fayolle. Catholics. It’s code was not primarily or essentially a matter of indiscriminate weaponry, but about enabling infantry to personally inflict as much death and damage as possible without any scruple or limit including with using their own lives to achieve the results.
The “murderous aggression the Russian aggressor” is no such thing. It is just such a just war.
Genesis 1:27-28 is mentioned in the first paragraph. Yes, They disobey the Genesis 1:28 commandment–the first commandment–to “be fruitful and multiply [in the Garden]” when they become one flesh incorrectly (Genesis 2:24) by eating from the wrong tree in the allegorical Garden’s center (Genesis 2:9).