Human dignity: Traditional Catholic teaching and modern thought

With Cdl. Fernández’s Dignitas infinita released next week, it is useful to contrast the traditional and modern teaching on human dignity.

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — On April 8, the highly anticipated document on “human dignity” will be released by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, after he personally rewrote the text on the order of the Pope and thus did away with five years work by Vatican theologians. 

Set to be released via a press conference on April 8 – the transferred feast of the Annunciation – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new text is called “Dignitas infinita,” and is largely the work of CDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández. 

According to the reliable sources of La Croix’s Vatican correspondent Loup Besmond de Senneville, the text had been worked on by theologians at the CDF for five years, but Pope Francis specifically tasked Fernández to completely rework it once he assumed his new role as prefect in September 2023.

Fernández has previously stated that Dignitas infinita will address “not only social issues, but also a strong criticism of moral issues such as sex change, womb rental, gender ideologies, etc.” He did not anticipate much criticism of the text. 

De Senneville wrote that the document also covers “migration and the environment,” while the initial, but now defunct, draft “was limited to bioethical issues.” He predicted it would be a source of “shockwaves” in the Church, thus continuing a now clear pattern with the documents emerging from the CDF under Fernández’s tenure. 

In recent years, the concept of human dignity has become a much employed term, but perhaps little understood. It is used by abortion activists and campaigners for LGBT issues, while conversely clerics also emply the term to resist those same arguments. 

But a lack of true understanding of the concept is perhaps resulting to a change in teaching, which has occurred over a longer period of several decades, by which the traditional understanding of human dignity has changed. A clear contrast between the traditional teaching on dignity and its various forms can be seen in the so-called ‘new catechism,’ or the catechism released by Pope John Paul II in the mid-1990’s.

This reporter has published a book-length analysis on the catechism itself – “A Catechism of Errors” – working through its comparisons and contrasts with traditional teaching on a number of topics. {The book is recommended and published with a foreword and preface from theologian-author Don Pietro Leone and former U.S. Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.}

Prior, therefore, to the Monday publication of Dignitas infinita, it seems useful to highlight the Church’s traditional teaching on human dignity, and contrast this to the modern understanding which is now widely accepted. The once distinct kinds of dignity which were clearly taught have now been seemingly quietly abandoned and merged into a new form of dignity.

To quote from the summary of Chapter 6 of “A Catechism of Errors”:

Traditional teaching distinguishes between natural and supernatural dignity. Natural dignity being that which stems from man’s intellectual ability to know and love God, and supernatural being that which comes from the actual love of God. This last form of dignity is the property only of the faithful in the state of grace. Natural dignity can be diminished and lost through our sins, and supernatural dignity is thus also affected by sin. Supernatural dignity is of course the higher form of dignity and that which Catholic teaching has been traditionally chiefly concerned with.

However, the new catechism {representing the new style of teaching} does not specifically deal with supernatural dignity and seems to merge both natural and supernatural dignity into a warped new idea of dignity. The modern understanding both elevates natural dignity and lowers supernatural dignity. Furthermore, the new form of dignity is presented as being that which cannot be lost, despite actual sin.

This dignity is founded chiefly upon freedom, which is held as the chief mark of man’s dignity as a creature of God. Instead of the traditional teaching that man resembles God due to having an intellect and will, the new catechism {and new understanding} teaches that it is liberty which is the main likeness of man to God.

[In the modern understanding} this liberty is consequently upheld at the cost of morality, since the modern understanding teaches that one must always be completely free in conscience, and with his conscience one can perceive the divine law. The error is clear: false dignity leads to a misplaced sense of liberty in all things, which enables man to hold himself as the discoverer and judge of morality and divine law, rather than the Church.

With such a new basis of morality in place the catechism {and new teaching} thus is able to present the false idea of complete equality in dignity, a theme which is justified by the misuse of the form of dignity in the book. Under the new teaching, a great sinner can lay claim to having the same dignity as the greatest saints. The text extends the dignity enjoyed by the baptized faithful to all men, thus removing any distinction between higher and lower dignity and giving to all the dignity reserved for those baptized in a state of grace. Such reasoning makes very possible the erroneous arguments stating that all men are to be saved and that none shall go to hell.

As a final result of both these two aspects, degrading supernatural dignity and then extending it to all men, the Church becomes little more than a charitable organization, according to the new catechism.

The text is keen on promoting the common good, but does so in a manner devoid of reference to a Catholic understanding of the term. It focuses on personal fulfilment rather than the salvation of souls. With this particular emphasis on personal fulfilment comes the ideology of human rights being the guiding principle of all action, instead of the law of God. They even become the moral basis of authority, instead of the traditional teaching which states that authority comes from God.

The passages in the new catechism on the dignity of man present a fundamental shift in morality away from God. The supernatural elements of life and of society are ignored, and the dignity dependent on baptism and the life of grace is de facto extended to the whole world. Humanist, rather than Catholic, is the term which more accurately describes the pages of text which have been the subject of this chapter’s study. Such teaching prepares the way for a future rejection of the sanctity of life and ultimately a rejection of the faith.

The following passages are also taken from Chapter 6 of the aforementioned book on the catechism. Below is found the traditional teaching on human dignity and the first of three sections from the book dealing with the modern understanding of human dignity.

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I. Traditional teaching on dignity

We can distinguish between a more earthly, human or natural dignity, and the greater supernatural dignity of man. Just as man has a natural and a supernatural end, so also he has these two kinds of dignity.

i. Natural dignity

Man is made in the image and likeness of God, and his natural end is linked to that natural dignity. St. Thomas distinguishes three ways in which man is thus in the image of God, of which the first pertains to the natural dignity. The angelic doctor writes that we see the image of God in men, “inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men.”¹ This is to say that the natural end and dignity of man are related to his intellectual ability to know God and love Him. Don Leone mentions that “the particular excellence of intellectuality is its transcendental orientation” and the natural dignity of man as an intellectual creature is found in this natural knowledge and love of God.²

This nature and dignity is affected by sin to a greater and lesser extent. Aquinas notes that there are three goods of human nature.

First are the principles of nature, such as the powers of the soul, which are not affected by sin. Then we have the gift of original justice which was completely lost through original sin. The final good of nature is the inclination to virtue which is diminished by actual sin. Consequently, natural dignity is diminished by our sins: “as sin is opposed to virtue, from the very fact that a man sins, there results a diminution of that good of nature, which is the inclination to virtue.”³ Whilst the powers of the soul remain, the dignity related to the natural inclination to virtue is considerably weakened. Indeed, St. Thomas mentions the possibility of a man losing his natural dignity and uses the premise as a defense for the teaching of capital punishment:

“although it be evil in itself to kill a man so long as he preserve his dignity, yet it may be good to kill a man who has sinned, even as it is to kill a beast.”⁴

Both through original and actual sin, natural dignity is attacked and diminished. Natural dignity is the dignity of man in the image and likeness of God who has the natural aptitude to know and love God. Consequently, the more we sin, particularly mortally, then the more this dignity is diminished.

ii. Supernatural dignity

The second manner in which Aquinas notes man to be in the image and likeness of God is the supernatural dignity. This dignity is of a higher nature than the mere natural dignity and nature of man since it “derives from man’s actual knowledge and love of God in conformity with supernatural grace.”⁵ So whilst the natural dignity of man in the image of God is based upon his ability to know and love God, the supernatural dignity is based in his actual, habitual knowledge of God. St. Thomas describes it thus: “inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace.”⁶ Now this supernatural dignity is not found in all men but only in the baptized members of the Church in the state of grace. It is a dignity incumbent upon remaining in the practice of virtue as Aquinas mentions.

Supernatural dignity is of a greater worth than the natural dignity and is the chief dignity which should be discussed in catechetical or moral works. Should this dignity be affected by sin, one can avail of the sacrament of confession in order to regain sanctifying grace and recover this supernatural dignity.⁷ It is not equal in all, for a great saint who lives the virtues will of course have a greater supernatural dignity than the soul who struggles and falls every day with great temptations to sin.

II. The modern view in the Catechism

Part Three in the new catechism is devoted to the life in Christ, of which the first chapter is entitled “The Dignity of the Human Person.” This manages to avoid the topic of the supernatural dignity of man, dealing instead with the natural dignity. There is mention made of the “vocation to beatitude” and the possibility one has to “conform (or not) to the good promised by God,” but this is not expanded or explained properly.⁸ Nor is any mention made of the manner in which one might lose supernatural dignity. Indeed as Don Leone mentions, whilst the new catechism mentions a perfection in charity, “it does not identify this charity or holiness with his dignity, nor identify a loss of this charity or holiness with a loss of his dignity.”⁹