Originally published at National Catholic Register
U.S. bishops gathering in Baltimore this week discussed their plans to put into practice the mission articulated in Dignitas Infinita, the Vatican’s 2024 declaration on Catholic doctrine on human dignity.
Dignitas Infinita, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in April, addresses growing concerns such as gender theory, sex changes, surrogacy, and euthanasia in addition to abortion, poverty, human trafficking and war. It states that the Church addresses these concerns in the realm of human dignity “with hope, confident of the power that flows from the risen Christ, who has fully revealed the integral dignity of every man and woman.”
Bishop Robert Barron, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, in his opening remarks said the teachings in Dignitas Infinita could serve as an antidote to the societal ills experienced in the United States today.
“As we all know, cultural and political divisions continue to polarize our American society without any one way to approach the apparent disparate injustices that deepened those divisions.”
“If one faction emphasizes a certain set of ills, another faction invariably counters with another set, seemingly in competition with the first,” he observed, adding:
