> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.rebelnews.ie/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Pope Attacks Trans Community in Vatican Declaration - URL: https://www.rebelnews.ie/pope-attacks-trans-community-in-vatican-declaration/ - Published: 2024-04-19T10:31:34.000Z - Updated: 2024-05-21T12:16:15.000Z - Author: Kieran Allen - Tags: Features, International, News, transphobia ## **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?