Beyond Faith: A call for reason instead of religion for protecting human dignity

By James J. Devine

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent declaration, “Dignitas Infinita,” seeks to uphold the sacredness of human life and correctly asserts that war and poverty are attacks on human dignity, but its methods are rooted solely in a belief about mysticism and magic, which lead to some other erroneous conclusions.

This organization has undergone various name changes but it was originally established in 1542, as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. It was renamed in 1908 as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. In 1965, it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

A tribunal for cases of heresy and schism, the congregation was best known for prosecuting Galileo Galilei for his support of heliocentrism, the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the universe. In 1633, he was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” and sentenced to house arrest where he remained until his death in 1642. His crime was to have discovered the truth.

It took 359 years before Pope John Paul II officially declared in 1992, that Galileo was right, based on the findings of a committee he set up in 1979, which decided the Inquisition had acted in good faith, but was wrong.

To condemn someone for telling the truth can only result from ignorance, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, demonstrating the incompatibility between science and religion.

Consequently, these pronouncements from a celibate clergy lacking experience in the kind of lives that most of us know, fall short in addressing the complexities of human experience. I would argue for a more rational approach that integrates reason, logic, and respect for individual agency into the pursuit of human dignity.

In 1981, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a different name for the same entity that issued this declaration on dignity. He covered up cases of priests accused of abusing children, just as he had also handled at least four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors decades earlier while he was an archbishop in Germany.

Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth in 1941, and later drafted into the German Luftwaffenhelfer, the anti-aircraft personnel who served with the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

But putting aside his role in hiding sexual abuse of children or as a Nazi soldier, on March 15, 1990, when he was still a cardinal, Ratzinger quoted a statement by Paul Feyerabend that said, “At the time of Galileo, the church stayed much truer to reason than Galileo himself. Galileo’s trial was rational and just.”

These are not the kind of guys who should be forcing women to give birth to unwanted children or dictating rules about sexuality that they either know nothing about or know a little too much about.

Firstly, “Dignitas Infinita” presents human dignity as an absolute decreed by scripture and our understanding of this concept deserves to be informed by all the analytical tools at our disposal.

While faith can be a powerful motivator, it shouldn’t be the sole pillar for such a critical concept.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity,” said Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and atheist. “Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Human dignity thrives on the fertile ground of reason and evidence.

Logic dictates that a being capable of thought, empathy, and self-determination deserves inherent respect. Furthermore, scientific advancements in fields like neurobiology strengthen our understanding of human consciousness, bolstering the case for inherent human dignity.

Secondly, the authority of a body of celibate men to dictate morality on issues like sexuality and reproduction is questionable. Their pronouncements often disregard the lived experiences of a vast majority.

Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of human identity, and the spectrum of human experience around gender and sexual attraction is far richer than the binary the document presents. Similarly, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, a cornerstone of human dignity, is undermined by the document’s condemnation of abortion and surrogacy. These doctrines impose a singular viewpoint, neglecting the complex emotional, social, and medical realities faced by women.

The Vatican displays an inconsistency when it comes to the issue of suffering.

While it emphasizes respect for the dignity of the suffering, it adamantly opposes euthanasia. Surely, if human dignity is paramount, terminally ill individuals should have the right to choose a dignified end to their suffering, in consultation with loved ones and medical professionals.

“Dignitas Infinita” is certainly right to highlight the importance of protecting human dignity.

However, its focus on pronouncements, from a select group whose lives are defined by limited experience and whose beliefs are based on ancient assumptions, falls short.

A more effective approach would be to translate this noble goal into concrete action. Here, individual and community responsibility comes to the forefront. We can promote human dignity by dismantling social structures that perpetuate discrimination, ensuring equal access to education and healthcare, and fostering communities built on empathy and respect for diversity.

Americans who truly value liberty realize that our ability to maintain the freedom to do whatever we want as long as it does not hurt anyone else occasionally requires us to mind our own business when other people avail themselves of the right to do what someone else might not like. Religious liberty is not a license to discriminate or impose sectarian theological values on vulnerable communities, such as religious minorities, atheists and agnostics, people of color, women, and the LGBT community. Research on gender identity with regard to psychology, and scientific understanding of trans people and the phenomenon’s related issues, is relatively new.

I candidly admit that I do not understand transgender people, although that does not absolve me from owing them respect and it certainly makes me unqualified to restrict their freedom.

Whether someone who possibly has chromosomal advantages should compete in organized sporting events with women is a legitimate question but I am not going to decide the answer. I am prepared to state that biology, genetics, chromosomes, and anatomy do not tell the whole story but if God exists, then he made people gay and transgender, so the holy rollers in Rome should stop making pronouncements about matters they clearly cannot comprehend.

In fact, sex and sexuality, decisions about having a family, and much more are personal and private matters that cannot be decided by anyone except those involved.

Engaging in open dialogue that considers the richness of human reason, scientific evidence, and the lived experiences of all people is crucial. Only then can we build a future where human dignity is not just a theological concept, but a tangible reality for all.

In conclusion, the defense of human dignity necessitates moving beyond pronouncements based solely on faith and it should be expansive rather than narrow-minded.

All people must be respected and treated with full dignity and freedom but theologians making dictates about matters of which they are supremely unqualified to judge anyone invites a degree of ridicule since it is plainly ridiculous.