This past March 25th, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a new document that addresses the issue of human dignity: the Declaration Dignitas Infinita. There an argument is taken up that (as the same declaration points out), reflects a long tradition of the Church of linking human dignity directly with ontology, that is, human beings have dignity by the simple fact of being human. Their dignity is not a result of the actions that we can or cannot take (such as thinking, relating, self-perceiving ourselves as persons or being aware of suffering), nor by the rights granted or attributed by any institution or social pact, however universal it may be.
Those of us who make up the International Federation of Personalist Bioethics (FIBIP) receive with joy this latest teaching of the Church that confirms an entire journey made by Cardinal Elio Sgreccia. Starting from a long reflection initiated by Saint Augustine, Boethius, Saint Thomas Aquinas and taken up by Mounier, Maritain, Guardini and Karol Wojtyla, Sgreccia enriched the bioethical reflection of his time by proposing ontologically founded personalism. In this way, the path of so many documents referring to the dignity of human life is resumed (from the addresses of Pope Pius XII to health care workers, to Humanae Vitae, Iura et Bona, Evangelium Vitae, Donum Vitae, Dignitas Personae or more recent ones such as Laudato Sii or Samaritanus Bonus).
For each one of the personalist bioethics centers and institutes as well as for the academics who make up FIBIP, the recent declaration confirms so many efforts made as well as the teachings transmitted in defense of the rights that accompany the entire journey of the existence of human beings, from conception to our natural end.
We thank the Holy Father and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for giving the Church and the world an objective criterion, a permanent foundation, to defend the dignity of all people without distinctions.
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