Vatican calls gender fluidity and surrogacy threats to human dignity
Vatican calls gender fluidity and surrogacy threats to human dignity
I am so tired of the whole "cool pope" thing with Francis. It's 100% PR.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved the document, which also reaffirms its condemnation of surrogacy, saying the practice represents “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”.
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” the document says. “Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity.”
The ethical problems with surrogacy are real, but they're not about the child. They're about income inequality and putting adult women through a physically traumatic, dangerous, and possibly life-changing experience for money. If we were able to use artificial wombs for "surrogacy" (I know, it's technically not the same thing), I think people would see it as nothing but a new type of fertility medicine.
Believe it or not, there are women in this world who love being pregnant and want to help couples have kids. There are laws around it and reputable clinics make sure everyone is consenting.
So the vatican can fuck off with this outdated way of looking at the world. In fact, if you consensually want to sell your body in any way, we should be allowing it with regulations, be it surrogacy, egg donation, or sex work. Make it safe and make it a choice.
How about you work on your age-of-concent-fluidity problems first.
Let's not forget the racism as well.
There wouldn’t be many people left if all the pedos got removed.
The Vatican is still covering up little boy rape, right?
They're definitely covering for little girl rape too
I say diddling kids is a threat to human dignity.
That's where you and the pope will just have to agree to disagree.
idk, seems like forced birth and pedophilia are bigger threats to the dignity of the woman and the child than surrogacy
The Vatican has described the belief in gender fluidity as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”
Better update the bible in English to refer to god as "they" instead of always using male pronouns, then.
I mean, no update needed:
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
This passage uses a plural for God and refers to the image of God as male and female (likely a remnant of when it was a divine couple before the reforms, but still).
Attack and dethrone god
Lucifer tried!
Let this be a reminder to you that organized religion only accepts social progress when they get dragged to do it under risk of becoming irrelevant. This Pope's previous winks to the LGBT community were the bare minimum that the Catholic Church has to do in order to not to continue losing followers (and their wallets) in some countries such as Spain and Ireland. The moment a much less mainstream concept, such as gender fluidity, gets brought into the table, it's free game for them again.
Frank, if you want to find threats to human dignity, look at your child molesting priests and your bishops covering for them. Until then, you're in no place to judge.
Wouldn't depriving someone of their right to their preferred identity be considered a threat to human dignity?
It's not their "preferred identity." It's their identity.
They are not their "preferred pronouns." They are their pronouns.
It's not their "chosen name." It's their name.
They don't "identify as." They are.
(I know you're an ally, just wanted to point these things out for all the allies to use slightly better wording.)
I get what you are saying
but for chosen name I have to disagree. I, a cishet man, have a chosen name that my friends call me. it goes beyond a nickname, if I get called my birthname by friends I get weirded out and feel on edge. However, family and coworkers call me by my birth name and thats perfectly fine for me
I know that I'm 9 days late but thank you for the tip.
In Vatican it wouldn't.
Right to preferred identity?
Does that mean people have to see me the way I want them to?
Ah yes, recknognizing that human beings come in many different forms is the "threat to human dignity", and definitely not the practice of trying to aggressively (even violently) shoehorn others into neat, convenient categories. 🙄
You know what the real threat to human dignity is? Not respecting other peoples choices.
Yes, because living your desires as your true self is no way to find dignity. And surrogacy?! Like…what.
The only threat to human dignity here is child-rapists being considered the experts on morality.
Conservatism is a vile plague and religion a tool of conservatism. There is no greater threat to humanity than conservative religious people.
Ah yes, it is uniquely dignified to hate your body and feel like an alien inside it.
Letting people live the life they chose for themselves: unacceptable!
Forcing them to be unhappy and never find peace with themselves: just as god intended.
there's the catholic church that I knew and hated.
I wonder why multiple adults beating the shit out of 6 year old me with yardsticks wasn't a threat to human dignity.
What didn't kill you made you stronger
Fuck all the way off trauma has no reward. It took me a long time to grapple with that with my own childhood traumas. I used to think that after going through my own personal Hell, there'd be a Heaven waiting for me, but there wasn't.
outta here with that shit. we don't "look on the bright side" of child abuse. What didn't kill me made me terrified and angry.
Fuck the vatican
Get Fucked Pedo Leader!!!
Boo!
Boo, again I say!
It makes life so much harder for Trans living in parts of the world where Catholicism is still relevant.
s/relevant/prominent
Human dignity has been a nonarguement for 100,000 years
Human dignity is certainly not something the world's leading sponsor of institutional child rape should have any opinion on
Indeed
LOL, every single surrogate I've ever met personally, with the exception of one, has been a staunch Christian.
I hope you don't think your anecdotal experience indicates anything.
There are a ton of resources for LGBT people looking for surrogates and how to find them.
Edit: Sorry, I thought this was a reply to something else. Ignore.
Agreed. Being slightly less of an asshole than one”s predecessor is definitely not the same as being “cool”.
And thr vatican can fuck right off with their outdated world view.
Wonder why they’re losing so many followers
It's important to note that all the times he's been the "cool pope" he's prefaced all his statements with the phrase "ex cathedra", which means he's speaking as himself, not "the Pope". Because anything he says as "the Pope" is the official church position.
Gotta hand it to all the folks who warned me that "cool pope" was just paying lip service to progressive ideals and didn't actually fundamentally change how shitty the actual Catholic church is. They were right all along and I owe them all an apology.
He's kind of a wimp, then. I'm sure his progressive views are genuine, he has no reason to lie, but I'd think he would know that Canon Law is geared towards papal supremacy, the Cardinals can denounce him all they like, but they can't kick him out. Sure, he could start a schism, but the world was overdue for one, anyway.
There are a couple of institutions that keep trying to bring us back to the middle ages. I suggest we get rid of them for good before they declare the next holy crusade. Dear Pope, you suck!
Vatican should shut the fuck up and pay attention to their own bullshit before casting their stone. The glass house they live in is barely held together. How many children at this point now?
Pretty ironic considering what they have done to human dignity for centuries
Human dignity? That was a lost cause a long time ago.
so the vatican is running the same fuckin narratives as the american GOP??? Surrogacy?!
... because a jesuit taking the name after S.Francis wasn't already a clue strong enough?
You would think, but the "Cool Pope" label persists.
Who the fuck do these Vatican people think they are, to lecture others on morality? The previous pope instructed all of Catholosism that they were not to report pedophile priests to the police on pain of excommunication. And this is apparently fine by the current pope.
They are a bunch of idiots with no coherent concept of morality. All morality is based on personal responsibility, but most Christians seem to think they can ask their imaginary friend - rather than the one they have wronged - for forgiveness, and be granted it! It is absolutely absurd. I'm not saying that Christians in general are bad people, I'm just saying we shouldn't be looking towards Christianity or any of its leaders for moral guidance.
Incidentally - do you know which World War 2 nazis were excommunicated for their crimes by the Catholic church? You'd probably be surprised to know that it was only one. One! And who was it? It was Joseph Goebbels. Among all the heinous crimes commited by the nazis, what was it that Goebbels specifically did that caused the Catholic church to say "enough is enough"? I'll tell you what he did: He married a divorced protestant. "That's it," the Catholic church said, "you no longer get to go to heaven with your fellow nazi war criminals. Killing 13 million people in the Holocaust alone we can live with, but marrying a divorced protestant? No, we can't have that, that would be, like, totally immoral dude."
But surely, I hear you say, the Catholic church was against the nazis? No. No, they were not. Hitler's birthday was celebrated in German Catholic churces all throughout the war. Only in 1960's did the Catholic church apologize for its silence during the Holocaust, and revert the hitherto established doctrine that all currently living Jews - including children - are personally responsible for killing Jesus. That's why they didn't oppose the Holocaust - because the Jews (never mind that they weren't the only victims) had it coming, since they were all (some-fucking-how) personally responsible for "killing Jesus".
So, yeah. I'm not going to let these morons lecture me or anyone else on morality.
Who the fuck do these Vatican people think they are
The most powerful government in the world.
(◠‿・)🖕
Who asked Vatican? Don't they fuck kids? I'm not asking my local child molester what they think about my wife pegging me, let's stop giving fucktards a platform.
The surrogacy debate is one of those things where I think leftists and feminists across the world don't realize how far apart they are. Over here it's a very mainstream left-wing, feminist position to agree with the Pope on that one. Hardcore feminists, and increasingly moderates as well will refer to surrogacy as "human trafficking" and have been lobbying to illegalize it outright for a while.
I'm not super aware of the mainstream stance among feminism in the US, but from the comments here I'm gonna say... not that?
From the US: I'm over 30 and this is the first time I've heard surrogacy referred to as human trafficking. And now I need to sit and think.
It's always felt a little bit creepy to me, but I've also never wanted kids and the idea of pregnancy for any reason would be traumatic. So I'm starting out heavily biased. I think if you take the money out, it no longer counts....?
But the idea would be so out of left field that it would mostly be dismissed out of hand, probably even by most women.
I'm curious, where's "over here" for you? I'm not super involved in politics here in the US, but I don't think surrogacy is really talked about much here? There's the people who vehemently oppose it (from my experience that's mostly the religious right), but almost any interaction I've had discussing it just lists it as an option people can consider.
I should mention that I'm Bi and don't have a kid, so I mostly hear about it from the context of same sex couples.
I get the feeling this person is probably talking about commercial surrogacy from a European perspective.
Look, if I wanted to say that I'd have just come out and said it. You could probably figure it out by digging through my replies and mentions, but... that'd be kinda rude?
We can leave it at "not in the US", maybe?
In any case, it is interesting how that divide has not made it over. Along with the different positions on sex work it seems like one of the most notorious differences in position within feminism (TERFs exempted because I don't think they count at all in the first place).
I think we all have a tendency to try to paper over these regional differences to present a unified front, but these are significant differences in perspective.
And for the record, I know plenty of same sex couples here that will tell you outright that having babies is not a right and you don't get to pay for a woman's body under any circumstances. Like you, I feel like I don't have a horse in the race, so I abstain from opining in any direction on this one. You need at least one more uterus than I'm rocking to get a vote on this one.
But I can still notice the difference of opinion and how little it's mentioned.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Vatican has described the belief in gender fluidity as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”, as it released an updated declaration of what the Catholic church regards as threats to human dignity.
The new Dignitas infinita (Infinite Dignity) declaration released by the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Monday after five years in the making reiterates Pope Francis’s previous criticism of what he has called an “ugly ideology of our time”.
Reiterating opposition to gender reassignment surgery, it adds: “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 Holy See distinguished between these sorts of surgeries and procedures to resolve “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or develop later.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved the document, which also reaffirms its condemnation of surrogacy, saying the practice represents “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”.
Fernández, a liberal theologian who was appointed to the DDF role – one of the Vatican’s most powerful positions – by Francis last year, said punishing homosexuality was “a big problem” and that it was “painful” to see some Catholics support anti-homosexuality laws.
The original article contains 417 words, the summary contains 203 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Lol.
Yeah go read all about it! It's in their book!...oh wait, could we just burn the book and the nightmare will be over like in the movies?
Lol
And I think an organisation covering for pedophiles and murdering kids in their schools have no moral high ground and it is definitely unfit to lecture anyone on human dignity.
Eat a bag of dicks Francis
Francis,
Calamari is just the tips.
Exactly. There people are a threat, not role models.