Dignitas Infinita—Infinite Dignity. A Compendium of Catholic Ethics—and a Missed Chance

Ingeborg G. Gabriel is a professor emerita at the University of Vienna.

The declaration Dignitas Infinita (DI) was issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith with the explicit approval of the Pope on 8 April 2024. It had been in preparation for five years and was intended to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 2023. Its belated publication was due to an ecclesial process of discernment described in the “presentation” at the beginning of the document.

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What Does Dignitas Infinita Say about Gender?

Francisca Pérez-Madrid is Professor of Law and Religion at the University of Barcelona.

The declaration Dignitas Infinita prepared by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith seeks to consolidate the affirmations of recent Popes on human dignity. The text is a voice raised to the world on the inalienable and unconditional dignity of every human being, which corresponds to an individual’s nature beyond any cultural change. The document’s argumentation is based on faith and reason and refers to sacred scripture and on the teachings of the Catholic Church.

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Theological Perspectives on the Document Dignitas Infinita

Rev. Thomas Massaro, S.J., is Professor of Moral Theology at Fordham University in New York City.

As a Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest, I noticed two sets of immediate reactions within the Roman Catholic community to the teaching document Dignitas Infinita. This 15,000-word declaration of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was released on 8 April 2024, timed (roughly so, as is often the case with Vatican promulgations) to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the founding documents of the United Nations.

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