The Vatican has declared gender confirmation operations and surrogacy as grave threats to human "dignity", putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that violate God's plan for human life.
The Vatican's doctrine office on Monday published a 20-page declaration titled Infinite Dignity that was in the works for the past five years.
It was approved for publication by Pope Francis on March 25 after substantial revision in recent months.
In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican reiterated its rejection of "gender theory" or the idea that one's gender can be "a self-determination".
It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said they must not tinker with that plan or try to "make oneself God".
"It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception," the document said.
It distinguished between transitioning surgeries, which it rejected, and "genital abnormalities" that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be "resolved" with the help of health care professionals, it said.
The document's existence, rumoured since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close confidante of Pope Francis.
He had cast it as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.
While the new document rejected gender theory, it took pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalise homosexuality.
It echoed Pope Francis's assertion in a 2023 interview that "being homosexual is not a crime", making the assertion now part of the Vatican's doctrinal teaching.
It denounced "as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation".
The document restated well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia.
It also added to the list some of Pope Francis's main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking and forced migration.
A child's right to 'a fully human origin'
In a newly articulated position, the declaration said surrogacy violated both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.
While much attention on surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican document focuses more on the resulting child.
"The child has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver," the document said.
"Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a 'right to a child' that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life."
The Vatican published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders.
It insisted on the complementary nature of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.
Gender fluidity was described as a symptom of the "confused concept of freedom" and "momentary desires" that characterise post-modern culture.
The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quoted from that 2019 education document but tempered the tone.
Significantly, it did not repurpose the 1986 language of a previous doctrinal document saying that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are "intrinsically disordered".
Francis has made reaching out to LGBTQ+ people a hallmark of his papacy, ministering to trans Catholics and insisting that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.
But he has also denounced "gender theory" as the "worst danger" facing humanity today, describing it as an "ugly ideology" that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman.
"It needs to be emphasised that biological sex and the sociocultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated," the new document said.
AP
