The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has commended Dignitas Infinita, a declaration reflecting on human dignity, for study and reflection by Australia’s Catholics.
The document, released by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, was five years in the making and focuses on a range of “grave violations” of human dignity.
The declaration, published on Monday in Rome, identifies poverty; war; the mistreatment of migrants; human trafficking; sexual abuse; violence against women; abortion; surrogacy; euthanasia and assisted suicide; the marginalisation of people with disabilities; gender theory; sex change; and digital violence, as particular violations of human dignity.
Prefect for the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, described the document as offering “some points for reflection that can help us maintain an awareness of human dignity amid the complex historical moment in which we are living”.
“This is so that we may not lose our way and open ourselves up to more wounds and profound sufferings amid the numerous concerns and anxieties of our time,” Cardinal Fernandez says in the document’s introduction.
The document reaffirms that “every human person possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevails in and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter”.
Pope Francis has been vocal on many of the issues raised in the document, including abortion, surrogacy and sex change surgery.
Dignitas Infinita talks of four types of dignity (ontological, moral, social and existential) the most important of which is ontological. The ontological dignity is the dignity which belongs to the person “simply because he or she exists and is willed, created, and loved by God … (it) is indelible and remains valid beyond any circumstances in which the person may find themselves”.
The document addresses the growing threat of people being able to determine their own identity and future, calling it a “flawed understanding of freedom”.
“There is an ever-growing risk of reducing human dignity to the ability to determine one’s identity and future independently of others, without regard for one’s membership in the human community,” it says.
“In this flawed understanding of freedom, the mutual recognition of duties and rights that enable us to care for each other becomes impossible.” The full document can be found here.