The have grappled with what it means to balance having a pope who literally and figuratively embraces their community while approving documents that seem to call their very dignity into question.

That reality is playing out again today, with the release of the Vatican declaration "Dignitas Infinita,".

Dignitas Infinita is a 12,000-word treatise articulating previous church teaching on a number of issues related to human dignity.

Many Vatican analysts point out that rather than presenting new teaching, "Dignitas Infinita" more or less summarises existing Church doctrine.

It touches on a number of issues related to human dignity, including war, poverty, sex abuse and human trafficking.

The document, which has been in the works for the past five years, cites other popes and Vatican documents.

It also tries to synthesise the thoughts of Pope Francis.

The whiplash striking LGBTQ Catholics

The whiplash that accompanies being a Catholic and member of the LGBTQ community today is present even within this single document.

That's because the sections that touch most closely on LGBTQ issues actually include a couple of bright spots - before offering strong condemnations of "gender theory" and "sex change" surgeries.

What does the new declaration say?

First, "Dignitas Infinita" reiterates church teaching that:

"every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination' is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence."

Then it goes a step further, condemning laws that criminalise homosexuality, stating:

"it should be 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."

For years, LGBTQ activists had urged Pope Francis to speak out against laws that criminalise homosexuality, particularly statutes and bills in some African countries that had the support of local bishops.

Francis took this step last year, becoming the first pope to condemn laws in at least 67 countries that criminalise homosexuality.

Now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has further bolstered the notion that Catholics should not support these kinds of prohibitions.

At a press conference following the release of the document, Cardinal Víctor Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, described it as "painful" to learn that some Catholics support laws criminalising homosexuality.

He said "we do not agree with criminalisation."

James Martin, S.J., the founder of Outreach, said in a statement that he is "grateful that the Vatican has reiterated its official condemnation of every kind of violence against LGBTQ people, including imprisonment and execution.

"That cannot be repeated too often as an offense against human dignity.

"The LGBTQ person, like everyone else, has infinite dignity."

The document is also notable for what it doesn't contain.

These are, namely, some of the harsher language present in an earlier Vatican document about gender identity - even some of the phrases spoken by Pope Francis himself around this topic.

But those omissions will probably offer little comfort to the transgender Catholic community and their families and allies, who will undoubtedly be hurt by what is included. Read more

• Michael J. O'Loughlin is a journalist, author, commentator, and speaker who covers religion and politics with a particular focus on the Catholic Church. He is the executive director of Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic resource.

He said it is a global war against marriage, which he described as God's most beautiful creation.

He was speaking to a group of religious men and women and pastoral agents in Georgia.

"Today, there is a global war trying to destroy marriage… they don't destroy it with weapons, but with ideas.

"It's certain ideological ways of thinking that are destroying it…we have to defend ourselves from ideological colonization," he said.

The pontiff was talking off the cuff, after taking down notes on the four questions posed to him by a priest, a seminarian, a married woman, and a young man.

The meeting took over an hour,.

He spoke through an interpreter doing live translation into Georgian.

About 250 people, including priests, religious, and seminarians, plus 140 representatives of lay pastoral councils were present.

Irina, mother of two children, had spoken about the challenges both Catholic and Orthodox families face in Georgia.

These include globalization.

She said it "doesn't take into consideration the local values, the new views of sexuality as gender theory, and the marginalization of the Christian vision of life, particularly on our choice of educating our children as Catholic."

The Pope has often spoken about ideological colonization and gender theory.

ideological colonization first refers to developed countries imposing ideas into developing nations.

This is often achieved by putting a tag on economic aid.

Gender theory or ideology instead refers to the idea that "sex" is what a person is biologically.

A configuration of chromosomes, hormones, reproductive units, and internal and external anatomy determines this.

Gender is what the person believes himself or herself to be.

Gender theorists say that people should be able to identify as male, female, in-between, neither or both.

They discourage the stereotypical gender-based divisions, such as dolls for girls and trucks for boys.

Irina also spoke about the challenge the Catholic community faces as divorce is available for the Georgian Orthodox .

It is not available for Catholics, with many parents seeing separation as the easiest way out of a hard situation.

Source

• cruxnow.com
• Image: www.chron.com

On May 13, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Valencia delivered a homily in which he stated the family has become a target in various ways.

"The family is haunted today, in our culture, by an endless threat of serious difficulties, and this is not hidden from anyone," Cardinal Cañizares said.

"There we have legislation contrary to the family, the action of political and social forces, with added movements and actions of the gay empire, of ideas such as radical feminism, or the most insidious of all, gender theory," he said.

The cardinal is a former prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Soon after Cardinal Cañizares's remarks, several pro-LGBT and feminist organisations announced they were going to file an official complaint with the local "Office of Hate Crimes".

Technically, they intend to charge Cardinal Cañizares with "apologia", a term in Spanish law for encouraging or defending a criminal act.

Spain has had anti-discrimination laws including penalties for "hate speech" since 1996.

Seeing the reaction to his remarks, Cardinal Cañizares decided to publish the homily in full, with an accompanying note asking, "Is it homophobic to defend the family?"

He also requested "objective" lawyers and jurists to look at the homily content and decide if what he said is in fact "against the law" or homophobic.

In his letter, the cardinal said that the "censorship and condemnation" he received in some media, and the attacks from organisations and politicians, made him recall "stages of our past history" during which homilies and preachers were "censored and condemned".

He was referring to Spain's fascist past in which sermons deemed seditious could see priests heavily fined.

Pope Francis has also warned against an "ideology of gender" with one recent example being in his exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

Valencia's auxiliary Bishop Esteban Escudero defended Cardinal Cañizares, noting that he was "defending the family amidst the challenges the Pope talks about".

Sources

• Crux
• Image: Plinthos

In an interview published in a book recently released in Italy, the Pope put gender theory in the same category as genetic manipulation and nuclear weapons.

These are all threats to creation, that disfigure the face of man and woman, the Pope warned, according to an article in the National Catholic Reporter.

Church leaders have used the term "gender theory" to refer to ideas that question the God-given nature of sex differences and the complementarity of man and women as the basis for the family.

Under some gender theories, "sex" may be what a person is biologically, but gender is what the person believes himself or herself to be.

The latter can be imposed by oppressive cultural stereotypes, some gender theorists believe.

They posit that people should be able to identify as male, female, neither or both.

In Pope Francis, This Economy Kills by Italian journalists Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, the Pope is asked about the importance for Christians of safeguarding creation.

Francis referred to the duty of all people to respect and care for the environment.

But he added that every historical period has "Herods" that "destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation".

"Let's think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings," he continued.

"Let's think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognise the order of creation."

"With this attitude, man commits a new sin, that against God the Creator," the Pope said.

"The true custody of creation does not have anything to do with the ideologies that consider man like an accident, like a problem to eliminate."

"God has placed man and woman and the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the Earth," Francis said.

"The design of the Creator is written in nature."

Last month, Francis referred to gender theory as an example of "ideological colonisation that tries to destroy the family".

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic News Service
• Dale O'Leary
• New Zealand Herald
• Image: DesignTutsPlus