After many years of gestation, the Vatican declaration on human dignity seeks to justify its opposition not just to trans people but a range of progressive changes, as Kieran Allen argues here.
The Vatican issued a document earlier this month which condemns trans people.
Called Infinite Dignity, it is authored by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,
which is part of the Roman Curia in charge of religious discipline in the Catholic
Church. It is a strange piece of work as it took five years to produce, with earlier
drafts rejected. But, while it is 24 pages long, less than one page is devoted to its
main target: ‘gender theory’.
The attack on ‘gender theory’ or what the Vatican calls ‘ideological colonization’ is
hardly a new development in Catholic conservative circles. In 1994, the Fourth
World Conference on Women was held in Beijing and some of the concepts that
were used to promote equality really annoyed the Vatican. One of the main
opponents of any reference to ‘gender’ was Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became
People Benedict XVI.
Understanding Gender
The term gender refers to the socio-cultural role of masculinity and femininity. It
implies that these roles are learnt, and constructed by, society. From an early age
boys are expected to wear blue and girls to wear pink. From then on there develops
expectations into which individuals fit and these conform to societies view of being
male or female. In other words, masculinity or femininity is not just rooted in biology.
“Gender” is a concept that was widely used in feminist thought as women struggled
against social norms which relegated them to second class citizens. But feminism
was also the main target of Ratzinger’s anger and he set about challenging it with
some gusto. He was shocked by ‘medical-technical experiments’ that made
‘procreation … independent of sexuality’ – that is, by new reproductive technologies.
He was equally concerned with resisting ‘the justifications for premarital relations,
masturbation, homosexuality, or even by the admission of the divorced and
remarried to communion’. At the core of Ratzinger’s argument against feminism was
that you could not detach sex from procreation, as this was God’s plan.
When Jorge Mario Bergoglio travelled to Rome from Argentina in 2013 to become
Pope Francis, it was assumed that a more liberal Vatican would emerge. However,
Francies developed a rhetoric which condemned the economic ills of modern
capitalism – its growing inequalities and commodification of everything – with a
highly conservative approach to asexuality. This was clear when he intervened in the
debate on same sex marriage debate in 2010 his native country. The debate, he
claimed was
‘not simply a political struggle, but an attempt to destroy God’s plan, … a move of
the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God. … At
stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At
stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance,
and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and
willed by God’
Broader Project
Ratzinger and Bergoglio developed a rhetoric that seeks to roll back modern
concepts of sexuality. One of Marx’s central argument’s was that human sensibility is
not fixed. Rather that needs and desire develop as we interact with both the natural
and social environment. As the world changes, even under the compulsion of the
capitalist market, more and more women engage in the labour market. Most people
come to think sexuality is about pleasure and is not part of a God’s plan for procreation.
The varieties of sexual activity grow and the idea that homosexuality is “an act of
depravity”; or “intrinsically disordered” is rejected.
Fighting a rearguard action, the Vatican seeks a point whereby they can connect with
the insecurities created by neoliberalism. They want to displace that insecurity onto a
fear about disruption of ‘the natural law’ or more simply God’s plan. They regard the
attack on trans rights as the first step in a roll back against homosexuality, abortion,
or even pre-marital sex.
God’s Will
This is evident in Infinite Dignity which deploys the rhetoric of a serious philosophical
tract; yet, the ideas are basic and crude. Running through the document is an
assertion – repeated many times over – that human dignity has an “ontological”
basis. In other words, human dignity arises because humans ‘are created in the
image and likeness of God’. Not only that, but dignity also arises from the fact that in
death our destiny is a ‘fellowship with God’. Two other astounding claims are then
made.
First, that human life ‘is a gift from God’ to which we should show gratitude. And
second, every effort to interfere with this God given life – whether though assisted
dying or abortion or gender surgery – is a ‘concession to the age-old temptation to
make oneself God.’
Now this is literally incredible stuff. There is absolutely no evidence that a God
created each human being. This is to deny that basic facts of evolution which asserts
that complex human life emerged over millions of years from other forms. Moreover,
there is no evidence that, if he or she exists, God had a ‘plan’ to divide humanity into
two sexes -in order that different treatments be accorded to those deemed masculine
and feminine.
Human Rights
Although the Vatican document refers to the UN Universal Declaration of Human
rights made in 1948, it fails to acknowledge that the language of ‘human rights’ is not
a discourse that existed for all times. It emerged with the Enlightenment, and the
early origins of capitalism as it struggled against feudal claims that everyone was
ascribed to different ‘estates’. When the US constitution claimed that everyone is
born with inalienable right – which ambiguously did not include black people – it did
not rest this claim on the fact that they were created by God. It asserted that
humanity itself had a political and moral value, however it arose.
To back up its claim that life is a ‘gift’ of God and cannot be interfered with, the
Vatican has to return to a medieval philosophy. Infinite Dignity therefore asserts that
‘Medieval Christian thought arrived at a synthesis of the notion that the “person” that
recognised the metaphysical foundation of human dignity’.
However, we no longer live in medieval times. Human beings have re-shaped their
physical environment and in the process re-shaped our own needs and desires. Far
from trying to make ourselves into new Gods, we simply want to live as best as we
can in our mortal lives. And sometimes that can mean gender change. What is
wrong with that?
