Vatican declares gender change, surrogacy 'grave threats' to human dignity

April 8 (UPI) -- The Vatican and Pope Francis issued a strong declaration Monday, condemning transgender sex change, surrogate motherhood and abortion as "grave threats" to human dignity.

"We are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created," the doctrine states.

The 20-page document titled Dignity's Infinite, or Infinite Dignity, outlines what the Catholic Church sees as growing threats to human dignity, to include gender theory, sex changes, surrogacy and euthanasia, as well as abortion, poverty, human trafficking and war.

"In the face of so many violations of human dignity that seriously threaten the future of the human family, the Church encourages the promotion of the dignity of every human person, regardless of their physical, mental, cultural, social and religious characteristics," Monday's Vatican declaration, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, states.

The doctrine, which has been in the works for five years, states that any attempts to obscure "the sexual difference between man and woman" should be rejected.

"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 document states that God created man and woman as biologically different beings, and that people should not try to alter that plan or "make oneself God."

"Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into a competition with the true God," the document states.

Pope Francis also criticized Western governments for supporting gender theory and imposing their sexual values on society, as he warned against one of the world's "most dangerous ideological colonizations."

Several groups blasted the Vatican's human dignity doctrine for its hypocracy.

"While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people," wrote Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry.

"Yet again, a group of all-male, celibate clergymen is telling women and gender-expansive people that their lived experiences are not real or valid," Catholics for Choice president Jamie Manson wrote Monday in a statement.

"The root of the problem is that Pope Francis and all Catholic prelates still do not believe that women are equal to men," Manson added.

Despite the Vatican's strong stance on gender theory, the doctrine opposes the criminalization of homosexuality.

"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," the document states.

Last year, Francis became the first pope to condemn the criminalization of homosexuality and urged the Catholic Church to end "unjust" laws that criminalize being gay.

Last week, a Ugandan court upheld the country's harsh anti-gay law that imposes long prison sentences and in certain cases, the death penalty. Uganda is one of at least 67 countries that criminalize homosexuality.

"We are pleased to see that the document furthered the Vatican's call to ensure that LGBTQ+ are protected from violence and imprisonment around the world," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday.

"However, the president will continue to be an advocate for the rights, safety and dignity of the LGBTQ+ community, including transgender people here in the United States," Jean-Pierre added.

In addition to condemning gender theory, the Vatican doctrine also came out against surrogacy, arguing that "the immensely worthy child becomes a mere object" in a transaction.

"Because of this unalienable dignity, the child has the right to have a fully human, and not artificially induced, origin and to receive the gift of life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver," the declaration states, adding that having a child is a gift, not a right.

"A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract," the document states.

"Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother's womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity."