I have been very sad since April 8, 2024, when the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith promulgated Dignitas Infinita, the Declaration on Human Dignity. I have felt the immense grief among LGBTQ people and their families and friends. This document states many beautiful and essential truths, but the section on Gender Theory, which condemns ‘gender ideology,’ is harming the transgender people I love.
Such was the recent lament of Sr. Jeannine Gramick of New Ways Ministry. Long known for her “gay rights” advocacy, Gramick and her colleague Fr. Robert Nugent were censured in 1999 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—a censuring informally reversed when Gramick was received by Pope Francis in 2023.
Pro-“LGBTQ” disappointment
Gramick is certainly not alone in her sadness and disappointment regarding paragraphs 55-60 of Dignitas Infinita, which condemned “gender theory.” A sampling of headlines, many featured at Outreach, “an LGBTQ Catholic Resource,” founded in 2023 by Fr. James Martin, SJ (in conjunction with America Magazine), reveals the anger and the angst:
• “Dignitas Infinita” falters when it doesn’t practice what it preaches
• Vatican condemnation of “gender theory” a moment of whiplash for LGBTQ Catholics
• As a transgender Catholic, I don’t see gender diversity as a threat to our faith
• Transgender Catholics call the church to listen, says this Franciscan sister
• In “Dignitas Infinita” the Vatican Quarrels with a Theory of Its Own Making
• Transgender Catholics call the church to listen, says this Franciscan sister
An odd reversal has taken place. The last declaration issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, last December’s Fiducia Supplicans, created a firestorm of opposition from Catholics around the world, even to the point of the bishops of Africa (along with bishops from many of countries) rejecting the document’s approval of blessings for couples in irregular unions, including “same-sex couples”. Those, like Gramick, who were elated by such Vatican approval now find themselves the opponents of the current teaching of the Holy Father, whose papacy, often marked by ambiguity and confusing statements, they have lauded and embraced.
At a time when many continue to suffer the denial of their rights and attacks on their basic dignity, DI is a valuable and useful document. “Every human person possesses an infinite dignity,” says the document, “inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.” DI affirms that human dignity is an “ontological dignity” and “sees an opportunity to proclaim anew its conviction that all human beings—created by God and redeemed by Christ—must be recognized and treated with respect and love due to their inalienable dignity. The anniversary also provides an occasion for the Church to clarify some frequent misconceptions concerning human dignity and to address some serious and urgent related issues” (Art. 2).
The declaration not only articulate doctrinal principles in defense of human dignity, but identifies specific ways in which such dignity is attacked—from abortion to war to human trafficking to euthanasia. Included in what DI calls “inestimably profound acts of evil against others” is “gender theory”—the “ideology” that denies the God-given truth that we “‘cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.’ Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity” (Art. 59).
It is interesting to note that the section on gender theory is almost entirely dependent on the encyclicals, exhortations, and speeches of Pope Francis. The section appears to indirectly include homosexual acts as part of the danger of gender theory when it cautions against any form of unjust discrimination based on “sexual orientation”. Article 60 directly addresses sex-change—namely transgenderism, as contrary to human dignity.
Subjective appeals, not arguments
Nearly all those who voice criticism of DI insist that its condemnation of “gender theory” fails to take into consideration the personal “life experiences” of those who have “transitioned”. It supposedly “fails to recognize the complexity of issues around gender and sexuality… inconsistent with the pope’s own approach of pastoral outreach,” as the pro-LGBTQ Maltese group Drachma Parents stated in a letter it delivered to the Holy Father.
Ish Ruiz, a theologian, ethicist and postdoctoral teaching fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, who identifies as “queer,” accused the Vatican of failing to “consult and ultimately misrepresented the experiences of trans people.” An open letter to Pope Francis signed by 130 Catholic students, theologians, and ministers, most of whom identified themselves as “gay, “queer,” “non-binary,” or “pan sexual” reject DI because it “shows no evidence that its authors were informed by true encounters with trans, nonbinary and intersex people. Instead, the declaration focuses on the threat of ‘gender theory,’ painting a diverse academic field as a monolith, a threat, an ‘ideology,’ and a phantasm disconnected from actual lives.”
DI is also criticized for failing to take into consideration scientific studies as Fr. Daniel Horan, OFM, states: “This is not the first time that the church has betrayed rich and complex bodies of scholarship in service of its preconceived views. In fact, we have seen it many times before.”
Uniformly absent from these criticisms of DI is any true theological argument—nothing based on the rich doctrinal teachings of the Church, Scripture, not to mention Divine Revelation itself. I am no stranger to those with same-sex attraction as my own dear brother, with whom I was very close, was homosexual and died of AIDS at the age of 42. I have another close relative whom I love very much living in a committed homosexual relationship. I know the importance of loving and accepting such persons, while at the same time navigating the difficult moral path of not condoning the life-style itself.
However, of all the evils identified by DI as contrary to human dignity, it is “gender theory” that most directly impacts the very nature of the Catholic Faith. The Church has no choice, if she wishes to be true to herself and to God, to address the ideology that denies the ontological goodness of what it means to be male or female according to the created order given by God. In its rejection of “gender theory” Dignitas Infinita primarily defends the reality of sexual difference—the reality denied by “gender theory” as indeed one critic even argued that the differences between men and women are “mere superficial biological differences.” However, the Church must condemn “gender ideology” that denies sexual difference because such difference—God created male and female—is the basis for the sacramental order of the world given in the Beginning, the sacramental order of the world upon which true worship is dependent.
Gender theory vs. God-created goodness
Indeed, transgenderism is the end and destruction of the sacramental order. Gender theory is essentially based on gnostic dualism—as those who defend transgenderism frequently argue that the body must conform to the dictates of the soul. The human body is then treated as mere raw material to be put to the service of the mind and of rational control.
Saint Pope John Paul II addressed this problem in Veritatis Splendor when he treated the conflict between freedom and nature as certain moralists in their exaltation of freedom:
…frequently conceive of freedom as somehow in opposition to or in conflict with material and biological nature, over which it must progressively assert itself. Here various approaches are at one in overlooking the created dimension of nature and in misunderstanding its integrity. For some, “nature” becomes reduced to raw material for human activity and for its power: thus nature needs to be profoundly transformed, and indeed overcome by freedom, inasmuch as it represents a limitation and denial of freedom. …[N]ature would thus come to mean everything found in man and the world apart from freedom. In such an understanding, nature would include in the first place the human body, its make-up and its processes: against this physical datum would be opposed whatever is “constructed,” in other words “culture,” seen as the product and result of freedom. Human nature, understood in this way, could be reduced to and treated as a readily available biological or social material. …Indeed, when all is said and done man would not even have a nature; he would be his own personal life-project. Man would be nothing more than his own freedom! (Art. 46).
Contrary to this gnostic pessimism, beginning with the first chapter of Genesis, God declares seven times that the world of matter is good. In a revolutionary optimism, the text proclaims that God and the material world are in harmony—distinct, yet united. This is the cornerstone of Catholic doctrine that indeed the material world reveals, even mediates the grace-filled presence of God. The sacramental order of God’s good creation is affirmed.
This sacramental order of reality means that the world of matter, from the Beginning, is imbued with a God-given meaning. The orderliness, purpose, direction, and beauty of creation are evident even in the very fact that the God of Genesis wills the world to exist. The material world is shot-through with intention. It is not random, not arbitrary, not an accident. The climax of this orderly universe is the creation of the human person: “Then God said, let us make man in our image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:26).
This doctrine of the good creation is also affirmed in the second chapter of Genesis: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). Thus, God resolves what John Paul II called “the problem of original solitude” in creating woman—Eve, who saves Adam from the “not good” of radical isolation. The first speech of the human race is Adam’s celebration of the other who is different from him, yet in union with him: “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23).
The engendered unity of man and woman is not a mere biological/functional reality. Rather, male and female sexuality are, from the Beginning, sacramental truths. This is unequivocally affirmed by a remarkable teaching of St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians. What it means to be man and woman, husband and wife, rests upon and is related to the unity between Christ and His Church. In Ephesians 5:31 Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 directly: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” There is no announcement. No introduction. Paul takes the ancient Genesis passage, pulls it forward, and drops it into the text. The concluding verse is the final and definitive revelation of what is given in the Beginning—with the Pauline declaration: “This is a great mystery—I mean that it refers to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:32).
Transcendent signs and nuptial reality
What exactly is the “this” of the verse: “This is a great mystery”? The this is none other than the engendered, marital, spousal unity of man and woman. Certainly, here we have the ultimate statement that tells us male and female sexuality cannot, indeed must not, be reduced to simple biological functionality. Human sexuality is not a mere social construct. God created male and female sexuality as transcendent signs that speak another truth—namely, the unity of Jesus and His people—and this unity, indeed the very order of redemption itself is a martially ordered nuptial covenant. The meaning of gender, first discovered through natural law, serves the supernatural Covenant of Redemption and is a participation in this reality.
It is interesting to note that the declaration, subject to such vehement opposition in its condemnation of gender theory, always uses male pronouns in reference to God and female pronouns in reference to the Church. Thus, even in so doing, “gender theory” is rejected and the nuptial Order of Redemption affirmed.
A great lesson is taught here regarding what it means to be embodied. The human body, male and female, has a sacred, even liturgical dimension. Thus to deny the body, in that ancient pagan gnostic pessimism and to mutilate one’s gender, is to mangle a sacred language God Himself created to speak and make present the covenant of redemption. If there was ever a timely, significant lesson taught in the Book of Genesis it is here: culturally, morally, socially, psychologically, anthropologically, spiritually, and even politically significant—gender is God-given. The sacramental dimension of male and female sexuality rests on the goodness of the created order itself—again, that the natural world is imbued with a God-given meaning—a God-given sense. The human person’s physical sexual embodiment is sacred. Male and female gender is constitutive of one’s personal identity.
In the wake of DI the pope has made efforts to smooth over the hurt feelings of those who are offended by the document. For instance he personally responded by letter with an “open heart” to the Drachma Parents and sent a letter to Gramick as well. Would that Francis had such a pastoral open heart to the critics of Fiducia Supplicans who he characterized as “hypocrites.”
If the detractors of DI virtually fail to put forth doctrinal or theological arguments—it’s because there are no such arguments. Thus they must advance arguments from personal experience, the pastoral need to dialog, scientific scholarship (much of which doesn’t necessarily support their position) with some defenders of transgenderism and non-binary sexual identity even believing the Church will eventually alter its view that male and female sexuality is ontologically constitutive of what it means to be human. In other words, in what would have to be a completely invalid application of development of doctrine, the Church one day will catch up with the critics.
In a world ever more immersed in individualistic self-determination and moral relativism, the Church however has bravely defended objective reality. Perhaps we can end this article with a quote from the Angelic Doctor who taught in his Summa (I-II, Q.93, i): “[H]uman intellect is measured by things since an opinion is true or false according as it answers to reality.”
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“I have another close relative whom I love very much living in a committed homosexual relationship. I know the importance of loving and accepting such persons, while at the same time navigating the difficult moral path of not condoning the life-style itself.”
This is a wonderful and astonishing statement from this publication. Thank you for having the courage to love and support your gay relative and for stating so in these pages.
What is astonishing about loving your family while not loving their behaviors? No matter what their distressing behaviors & sins might be we don’t cancel our kin.
Very well said, Mrscracker. Thank you.
I know several people who do not talk with family members.
It gets to the point if they want to live life their way then let them. At some point you have to move on from people who refuse to change.
Yup. The father welcomed back the prodigal son, but he did not validate the choices that led the prodigal to the pigpen; on the contrary, he had no contact with the son until the son returned.
Indeed, knowall!
Some gay people are so tired of being judged by family who see them through one lense. I am lucky to have a family who sees me as fully human, like they are.
Crazy thought here. Maybe if you repented and aligned your life with God’s will and principles, you wouldn’t feel judged. No one is obligated to call your darkness light.
Replying to Athanasius: let’s repent together. What sins have you committed, if I could ask?
You know what is really amazing? Remember all the people who died from AIDS? If they had followed the teaching of the Catholic church, they would all be alive today.
Ew. No. There is no requirement to love ones family and we can “cancel our kin” if we so please.
Nailed it, Ma’am, so you did. Seems like we’re forever trying to mess with the simple Gospel truth: love the sinner, hate the sin. It’s especially difficult to square when the sinner wants the sin validated as well.
Why astonishing? It’s not surprising at all that CWR upholds both truth and charity, as they must go together.
True True. I just haven’t seen the support from contributors in my survey of stories this past year. Certainly there are reader comments on here that present harsh criticism and also love and acceptance. It was just a relief to hear some support from a Contributor.
This religion is ultimately to help the saints to gain everlasting life in paradise, that is away from envious sinners, to enjoy God’s (spousal) Love necessarily materialised through men and women, for which He created them so.
However, during the long process of nurturing appropriate persons suitable for His kingdom from nothing to children to fully grown-up using the original freedom/sin, God’s paternal love aka Mercy is confused by many as His complete pleasing and cause all these hupla. Because of the same Mercy, God keep deny the Hope for eternal life to sinners for He doesnot want sinners aka anyone assured of there own death to waste there remaining life in false hope. Thus God’s effort to teach a few lessons using some sinners who want to idolise even below par love amidst sinners over conversion to the fullness of the Truth shall be placed appropriately in God’s grand scheme.
About the blowback from the LGBTQ religion: Perhaps the ghost-writer and “kissing” cardinal Fernandez has coaxed the over-challenged Pope Francis, partly, into this inevitability…
In the BEGINNING (very biblical!), was it the cardinal who inserted into Evangelii Gaudium (2013) such bellwether and cryptic “principles” as “time is greater than space” and “realities are more important than ideas”? The first pointing to so-called gradualism in doctrinal devolution (?), and the second enabling (?) a split between “concrete” cases and presumably “abstract” faith & morals?
So, TODAY, the blessing of persons in “concrete” and irregular unions (Fiducia Supplicans) supposedly harmonized with rejection of the mere “ideology” of gender theory (Dignitas Infinita). Veritatis Splendor, suffocated without mention in the 116 footnotes, but resuscitated here in the article, also spoke very directly to this kind of DUPLICITY:
“A separation, or even an opposition [!], is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions [!] contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [thou shalt not!]” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 56).
Is SYNODALITY also being groomed down the same slippery slope?
Is the non-demonstrable first principle of non-contradiction now obsolete? In an interview with The Pillar, Cardinal Hollerich opines that a thing can be both black and white at the same time:
“In Japan, I got to know a different way of thinking. The Japanese don’t think in terms of the European logic of opposites. We say: It is black, therefore it is not white. The Japanese say: It is white, but maybe it is also black. You can combine opposites in Japan without changing your point of view.” https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/who-is-cardinal-hollerich .
THUSLY—as with blessings coupled with the rejection of gender theory—from one’s own “point of view” the whole tire is not really flat, but only flat on one side! The fondling hermeneutics of the square circle!
What a profound statement about the beauty, the wonder, the power and the holiness of human sexuality.
I have never before seen it said this clearly and concisely.
The author’s unceasing defense of God’s little ones — in so many ways — is a glory and an inspiration in these evil times.
Thank you, dear lady, for reminding us (me) that we can resist evil without descending into sarcasm and polemics.
Contrary to the myth held by members of the early Church that the conjugal act was a form of evil related to the Fall from grace, God who created all things with a specific teleology or end. With Man of all his creation, made in his own image, male and female he created them we can say with certitude that the divine intelligence ordained that the exquisite beauty, purity, and good that is exclusive to himself be reflected in Man’s likeness.
As Migliorino Miller narrates this theme, she quotes Apostle Paul’s reference to a great mystery in that union of blissful love in this world. Known is the analogy of Christ and his bride. Lesser touched is the mystery of divine love fulfilled in the beatific vision, when Man, each man and woman who merits meets in nuptial bliss the love he was created for and which Christ shed his blood for. A spiritual union that surpasses the carnal, although prefigured in the carnal conjugal relation. As such the conjugal act when expressed in purity and good, with love and exclusivity effects life in this world to be fulfilled in the next.
As laity share in God’s goodness in marriage the priest, consecrated religious sister effect in their vows a spiritual marriage in which Christ is the spouse. A similar life of exclusive commitment, fidelity, and [even blissful] love realized in the Cross.
Such a rich and textured area of our thinking about God and God’s Kingdom.
Let’s not forget Matthew 22:30, where the author recalls Jesus’ teaching: “For at the resurrection men & women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in Heaven.”
Maybe Romans 12:27, with St Paul teaching: “Now you together are Christ’s Body; . .” and his teaching in 1 Corinthians 15:50, that flesh & blood cannot inherit The Kingdom of God; and the perishable cannot inherit what lasts forever.”
Biologically, human males and females are perfectly adapted to marry and, as one flesh, to lovingly generate and cherish children, and so populate the Earth. That is not a part of our eternal life in Heaven.
Where Scripture employs the marriage analogy it is intended to refer to spiritual union, that is a oneness in a shared loving obedience to God. Catholics have a foretaste of that union in properly receiving Holy Eucharist. St John 14:23 recalls the words of our Lord: “If anyone loves Me, they will keep My Word, and My Father will love them, and we shall come to them and make our home with them.”
According to St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (5:20), the Church is the Body of Christ, and we are it’s living parts.
It is as parts of The Body of Christ, our Lord, that we will be married to The New Jerusalem that God has prepared as the perfect, spotless Bride for His dearly beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased (Revelation 21:9).
The New Testament witness seems to be dissonant with those who have come to talk in terms as if they themselves were a spouse or the bride of Christ.
Our glory is that, by His grace & mercy, we (clergy & lay; celibate & married) are incorporated in the flesh & blood of The Lamb of God, that is Jesus Christ, God & Man crucified/resurrected/ascended/reigning and soon returning. ALL our righteousness is IN Christ, we have none of our own, even by our best efforts.
The distinction is relevant to LGBTQ claimants, with their strident cries for Catholic Christian authentication, so as to be married to Christ Eternal. For, as we have seen from John 14:23, it is only those who obey God’s commandments who God incorporates in His Son Eternal.
It’s not membership of the Church that LGBTQ should be chasing but obedience to the commands of God, made clear in The New Testament (e.g. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). This is the witness of The Apostles of King Jesus Christ – that all who are wise submit to.
Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
Yes, real marriage as “the analogy of Christ and his bride”…
So, rather than any kind of parity, “gay marriage” or even civil unions are only a parody of real marriage… And, as for the Germaniac proposal for an ordained female priesthood, is this really a backwardist step into a lesbianized Church? Likewise, is a permanent and rolling “synodal assembly” only a local plebiscite—absent the papacy and fully upstaging the Documents of the Second Vatican Council? And, likewise, the Germaniac proposal to prostitute the universal Church and redefine the universal Natural Law, both, by redefining the very meaning of “sexual acts”–an oblique and disguised cancellation of the Catechism and Humanae Vitae?
And, of the “ideology” of gender theory? Well, without the very recent Dignitas Infinita, the fluidity of history would soon forget even the Holy Family (!) as simply a culture-bound “special case” within the infinitely random spectrum. Sorta like continental Africa, already branded as such for rejecting (non-inclusive!) the veiled incoherence of Fiducia Supplicans?
Quick, for Cardinal Fernandez and the demoted and bifurcated dicastery on the doctrine of the faith (and morals?), how now to “harmonize” all such mere polarities??? A heavy lift for the “study groups” in advance of Synod 2024!
Enter Hollerich ? : “In Japan, I got to know a different way of thinking. The Japanese don’t think in terms of the European logic of opposites. We say: It is black, therefore it is not white. The Japanese say: It is white, but maybe it is also black. You can combine opposites in Japan without changing your point of view.”
Yup, the very same!
Who pontificated thusly of sound moral theology: ““I think that’s wrong. But I also believe that we are thinking ahead here in [terms of] teaching. As the Pope has expressed in the past, this can lead to a change in doctrine. Because I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct.” https://www.newwaysministry.org/2022/02/04/leading-cardinal-in-synod-seeks-change-in-church-teachings-on-homosexuality/
The thing about stage lights and microphones is that the mouthpieces lack the sociological foundation to even suspect how far their sounds carry and how broadly the wind blows. But, still without citing the source of his privileged “sociological-scientific” epiphany, his eminence sought to gather his feathers from the wind. https://www.newwaysministry.org/2022/09/02/top-cardinal-retracts-previous-call-for-revision-of-church-teaching-on-homosexuality/
In Fiducia Supplicans, has Hollerich’s retooled “attitude”–his “point of view”– now blown across the entire moral landscape, as a universal blessing of ALL “irregular” couples—as couples?
Retraction? What retraction?
It’s the Germanic tension between Christendom represented by Cardinals Gerhard Muller, Rainer Woelki, Walter Brandmüller, several bishops and Quackdom, represented by a host of fools covertly supported [covert by intent though witlessly transparent] by His Holiness.
As long as you identify persons, including your beloved according to their sexual desires, inclinations, orientation, you have Ipso facto sexually objectified them and denied their inherent dignity as a beloved son or daughter in direct violation of God’s Commandment regarding lust and the sin of adultery.
The Catholic Church has always recognized that a same sex sexual inclination is a disordered inclination, and that a disordered inclination is not a person.
This is also a Religious Liberty Issue per Catholic Canon 750.
Is it any wonder that there are Baptized Catholics, who now reject The Word Of God Incarnate, and are attempting to reorder our beloved according to sexual desire/inclination/orientation, in order to justify the engaging in of sexual acts, that regardless of the persons or their desires, including if the persons are a man and woman , united in marriage as husband and wife, are physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually harmful because they demean the inherent Dignity of every beloved son or daughter?
The desire to engage in a demeaning act of any nature, does not change the nature of the demeaning act.
Acting on a disordered sexual inclination of any nature is not and can never be an act of Love.
Love, which is always rightly ordered to the inherent personal and relational Dignity of the human person, who is first and foremost a beloved son or daughter, is devoid of lust.
I am sorry for the loss of your beloved brother and I Pray that at the moment of his death , he recognized Christ, in all His Glory, accepted God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy, and came late to The Fold.