On April 4, Francis met with some of the signatories of the Casablanca declaration, a document signed in March 2023 by more than 100 lawyers, doctors, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and other experts from 75 countries calling for the abolition of surrogacy.
But Francis has also shown a spirit of acceptance for LGBTQ individuals, welcoming trans people to the Vatican and supporting Catholic activists who work for the inclusion of LGBTQ individuals.
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, whom Francis recently appointed to head the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, made headlines in December when he approved “Fiducia Supplicans,” a document allowing for the blessing of same-sex couples and other couples in “irregular” situations. He also clarified that trans people can be baptized and allowed to be godparents.
The blessing of same-sex couples “aren’t meant to justify anything,” Fernandez clarified during a press conference presenting the document on human dignity on Monday (April 8).
Due to the backlash that followed the document on gay blessings, Francis’ doctrine czar said he felt that he had to defend it. He said that the pope has no intention of making doctrinal shifts or officially changing dogma, adding that, from this point of view, “the fact that the pope was pontiff for 11 years will mean nothing.”
Fernandez stressed that the document on human dignity should be taken as a whole, considering its strong condemnation of violence against women with its stance on abortion and surrogacy, and applying its opposition to anti-LGBTQ laws and discrimination to its reflections on gender theory and sex change operations.
The church isn’t doing this because it’s “chauvinist or backward,” he said, answering journalists’ questions. “We are attempting to be coherent with the dignity of human beings beyond any circumstance,” he added. Fernandez said that children born through surrogacy are equal in dignity to any other person and underscored the church’s support for decriminalizing homosexuality.
The cardinal emphasized that there may be diverging views about how the doctrinal documents are applied and said Francis offers an alternative path for Catholics that is not seeing “a selected minority that accepts everything that the church says.” Doctrine stays the same, he said, but the church’s understanding of it changes, pointing to questions of slavery and the death penalty, which the institution first accepted and then condemned.
“One can always dig deeper to better understand that inexhaustible well that is the gospel,” Fernandez said, “and we still have a lot to discover and that we have not yet understood.”
Despite the pontificate’s efforts to walk a fine line between Catholic doctrine and practice, the new declaration has already drawn criticism. New Ways Ministry, an organization that works to promote and advocate for LGBTQ Catholics, said that “Dignitas Infinita” “fails terribly” in upholding the dignity of transgender and nonbinary people.
“If ideological gender theory and colonization exist in the world, it exists in the schema outlined by this document (that) a person’s gender is based on physical appearance and that only two genders, male and female, exist in human reality. Recent discoveries and experiences show that the poverty of church leaders’ thinking about transgender and nonbinary denies the rich diversity with which God created the world,” wrote Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, in a statement published Monday.
“As a transwoman, I am told by this document I am playing God and misapplying my moral freedom. This is not the reality of my life. My journey to self-acceptance was through realizing my self-worth as God’s creation,” wrote Madeline Marlett, leader of the Boston-based LGBTQ advocacy group DignityUSA, in a statement the same day.
“It is clear to me that the women and trans people who continue to identify as Catholic — despite documents like this completely disregarding our experiences — only do so because of a deep love for our faith and its traditions,” said the president of Catholics for Choice, Jamie Manson, in a statement issued on Monday.
“It is devastating that our leaders do not offer the same respect and love in return,” they added.
This article originally appeared here.
