Vatican slams sex changes and gender ideology for hurting a person's 'unique dignity,' in rare Pope Francis boost to conservatives

The Vatican in a long-awaited ruling on Monday said it opposed sex changes and radical gender theory, in a rare ruling under Pope Francis to align with religious conservatives.

The Vatican's doctrinal office (DDF) released the 'Dignitas infinita' declaration, about 'Infinite dignity,' which also makes a case against surrogate parenthood, abortions, and euthanasia.

It follows fierce conservative pushback, especially in Africa, against the Church's radical decision in December to let Catholic priests bless same-sex couples.

There is no suggestion that the new text was prepared in direct response to the rows over same-sex blessings, as it has been five years in the making.

Many conservatives have complained about Pope Francis' liberal direction for the Church

A female-to-male trans activist with breast-removal scars that the Church now calls an affront to 'infinite dignity'  

But it has undergone extensive revisions over the period.

Pope Francis approved it after requesting that it also mention 'poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war, and other themes,' said DDF boss Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez.

The declaration said gender theory is at odds with Catholic teaching.

It denounces attempts to obscure the 'sexual difference between man and woman.'

'Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes … amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God,' says the text.

This amounts to 'entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel,' it adds.

Gender theory, also known as gender ideology, suggests that gender is more complex and fluid than the binary categories of male and female, and depends on more than chromosomes and visible sexual organs.

It has become a culture war frontline globally, and especially in the US, where Republican lawmakers have outlawed interventions on trans children in some two dozen states.

The funeral of a trans activist in a New York City cathedral in February prompted an outcry

Conservatives and others in the US have protested outside clinics that perform sex-change procedures on children, like this one at Boston Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts

The statement rules against the growing number of children and adults who undergo sex-reassignment procedures, which range from puberty blockers to cross sex hormones and even surgery.

'Any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,' it says.

It acknowledged that some people may undergo surgery to resolve 'genital abnormalities,' but stressed that 'such a medical procedure would not constitute a sex change in the sense intended here.'

The declaration said surrogate parenting violated the dignity of both the surrogate mother and the child, and recalled that Francis in January called it 'despicable' and urged a global ban.

At the same time, the text also 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.'

Elsewhere, the declaration doubled down on the Vatican's standing condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, quoting from Francis, his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II and past Vatican documents.

It also mentioned sexual abuse as a threat to human dignity — calling it 'widespread in society,' including within the Catholic Church — as well as violence against women, cyberbullying and other forms of online abuse.