May 15, 2024
When we, as Catholics, discuss human dignity and even resort to the term “infinite dignity,” our gaze must first be raised to God. It is He who possesses infinite dignity, without any limit, and it was He who made men participate in it. With gratitude, we recognize that God, our Father, paved the way in his Son Jesus Christ so that men could achieve their full dignity and be with Him in eternity. There, the redeemed will contemplate and worship God along with the angels and saints. They will lack nothing!
After man was created in the image and likeness of God – “and God saw that it was very good” (Gen 1:31) – this image was violated by sin and sometimes even distorted to the point of making it unrecognizable. Man fell into multiple errors and his knowledge of God became clouded. But God took pity on him and sent his Son into the world to redeem lost humanity.
Risen from the dead, the Savior entrusted his Church to announce to all men the way of salvation, without limits (cf. Mt 28:18-20). Calling men to conversion, so that they can receive forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, aims to restore their true dignity. When a person embraces faith in Jesus and follows him, the dignity given to him by God is displayed to the highest degree. This is the path of holiness.
The Church not only helps men to overcome their moral misery through the grace of Christ, but also to free themselves from the errors that threaten their dignity on another level:
“If the intellect adheres to false opinions, and if the will chooses evil and embraces it, then neither the intellect nor the will can reach their perfection; On the contrary, they abdicate their natural dignity and become corrupted” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Immortale Dei, 15).
Therefore, the central mission of the Church continues to focus on reminding man of his supernatural vocation and instructing him to respond to it fully, because only in this way can his actual dignity be guaranteed.
If, from this perspective, we examine the latest statement published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, we notice that, although it mentions the transcendent dimension of the human being, the emphasis is different. It talks mainly about the dignity of the human person from an ontological point of view, as the innate image and likeness of God, which is common to every human being, in any state or condition:“An infinite dignity, which is inalienably based on one’s own being, corresponds to each human person, beyond all circumstances and in any state or situation in which they find themselves” (Dignitas infinita, 1).
Because the ‘ontological dignity’ of every human is vulnerable to corruption and must be protected, the declaration goes on to condemn the situations that threaten it most in the modern world, such as extreme poverty (n. 36), human trafficking (n. 41), sexual abuse (n. 43), violence against women (n. 44), abortion (47), motherhood surrogate (48), euthanasia (51), the discarding of people with disabilities (53), gender theory (55), sex change (60) and digital violence (61), all of them contrary to human dignity.
The document aims to contribute to a more precise definition of the fundamental dignity of the human person and insist on its protection by establishing the necessary safeguards at every level. As much as this concern is justified, the essential dimension that the Church is called to announce is greatly neglected here. By adopting a static anthropocentric vision of human dignity, the declaration omits the divine and dynamic dimension, through which human dignity can be transformed supernaturally to participate in the infinite dignity of the Godhead. As presented in the declaration, however, the theme of human dignity does not prepare the way for the indispensable proclamation of the Gospel and, consequently, loses its supernatural meaning.
Why is it so important for the Catholic Church to insist on the restoration of human dignity from a supernatural point of view?
Catholics believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted the Church with the incomparable mission of teaching all men to obey the Will of God to glorify Him and save their souls. Since God is the definitive Judge of the value of our life – and, consequently, of our dignity – the Catholic Church has the fundamental duty to tell men that their human dignity depends on how much they respond to the grace of God, recognize and embrace the true religion. Therefore, whenever the Church speaks about human dignity, it must necessarily transmit this essential message.
By not doing so, the “Dignitas Infinita” Declaration unfortunately contributes to confusion and continues to move away from the authentic path of the Catholic Church. Thus, the current hierarchy continues on the course that has already opened the doors to the Luciferian spirit, which wants the Church to be seen simply as another power in the world, and undermines its unique mission for the salvation of souls.