Barron told Fox News Digital that 'human dignity' is a uniquely Christian concept, and it therefore makes sense the 'Pope should stand up as its strongest defender'
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The Vatican's recent document on human dignity shows that the Catholic Church transcends secular ideas of "left" and "right," America's most popular bishop says.
Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester said the Catholic Church's release of Dignitas infinita shows "how stupid it is" to try to categorize the faith as "left" or "right."
The document, the title of which is Latin for "Infinite Dignity," was released by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith on Monday. It aims to outline many of the most pressing threats to human dignity in the modern world.
"In the light of Revelation, the Church resolutely reiterates and confirms the ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ," the document states in its beginning.
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Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester is the most widely-followed bishop in the United States besides Pope Francis himself. (Word on Fire)
In addition to widely accepted atrocities such as war, human trafficking, and poverty, Dignitas infinita also criticizes the rise of gender ideology and surrogacy as bioethical crimes against the human person.
Barron, the most widely-followed prelate in the United States besides Pope Francis himself, said the document shows how "stupid" it is to label the Catholic Church and its politics on a secular left-right spectrum.
"Catholic social teaching transcends the left/right split in western politics," Barron told Fox News Digital. "Notice how this document emphasizes a number of issues dear to the left — migration, poverty, opposition to war, violence against women — and a number of issues of importance to the right — abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology — and still others that both sides would advocate: opposing human trafficking, care for people with disabilities, sexual abuse."
The document received wide media coverage and publicity due to its harsh words against gender theory and transgender surgery, which it claimed was an ill-fated attempt to play God.
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"Regarding gender theory, whose scientific coherence is the subject of considerable debate among experts, the Church recalls that human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God," the document states. "This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good. 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 competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel."
It was equally critical of maternal surrogacy, which it said dehumanizes children and pregnant women into objects.
"First and foremost, the practice of surrogacy violates the dignity of the child. Indeed, every child possesses an intangible dignity that is clearly expressed – albeit in a unique and differentiated way – at every stage of his or her life: from the moment of conception, at birth, growing up as a boy or girl, and becoming an adult," the dicastery wrote in the document. "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 a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver."
The Catholic Church opposes surrogacy and in vitro fertilization due to a variety of factors, including the separation of the child from the woman who gestated it and the widespread destruction of human embryos practiced by the fertility industry.
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Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, poses for pictures in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. (Isabella Bonotto/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
"Moreover, acknowledging the dignity of the human person also entails recognizing every dimension of the dignity of the conjugal union and of human procreation. Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a 'right to a child' that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life."
Barron told Fox News Digital that the laser-focus of commentators and journalists on the sexual topics of Dignitas infinita says a lot about the modern world's philosophical priorities.
"For a number of reasons, freedom in the sexual arena is the central preoccupation of many today. I do believe that our society has internalized Freud’s notion that the non-repression of sexual desire is key to happiness," Barron told Fox News Digital. "Therefore, any attempt by state, society, or church to limit free sexual expression is to be opposed."
He also postulated that the Catholic Church's unique international presence and historical importance forces it into the position of bulwark against changes in understanding of human sexuality.
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Pope Francis sits at his weekly audience in the Vatican. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
"There is also a perception (largely true in my judgment) that the Catholic Church represents the strongest institutional opposition to the culture of self-invention and sexual freedom," the bishop said. "As a result there is practically an obsession with forcing the Church to cave on these matters."
The document's contents were not a surprise for those familiar with the Catholic Church's long-standing positions on the topics.
Pope Francis, forced to confront the rapid rise of gender ideology in recent years, has previously called it one of the world's "most dangerous ideological colonizations."
The pontiff similarly lambasted surrogate pregnancies earlier this year, when he called for a total ban on the practice.
Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota (center) speaks with congregants before celebrating a mass. (Word on Fire Ministries)
"I consider despicable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs," he said in January.
Barron said that himself and his fellow bishops were similarly not surprised by the document's reaffirmations of these positions, telling Fox News Digital that "anyone attuned to the consistent teaching of the Church would find nothing really surprising in this new statement."
For Barron, the value of the document is not in whether it adds or subtracts positions of the church, but instead how it centers its previous determinations around one topic.
"I believe that the title of the document, Dignitas infinita, is of supreme importance. The core principle of Catholic Social Doctrine has always been the dignity of the human person," Barron told Fox News Digital.
Pope Francis meets with plenary assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith during an audience at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. (Vatican Pool via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
This ethical concept, Barron argues, is a uniquely Christian virtue that is "taken for granted" by secular society.
"In line with the thinking of the British historian Tom Holland, I would say that this idea, central to the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights from 1948 and casually assumed by almost everyone in the West, is a product of the Judeo-Christian tradition," the bishop said. "It was certainly not held as correct by classical civilization, and it has been explicitly denied by regimes across time and all over the world. It is taken for granted in our civilization largely due to the influence of the Bible and therefore it is entirely appropriate that the Pope should stand up as its strongest defender."
Without God, Barron argues, the simple idea of inherent human value would cease to exist.
"Attempts to ground human dignity in something other than God — say in intellect, creativity, or personal responsibility—are completely inadequate," Bishop Barron told Fox News Digital. "For when someone is deemed insufficiently intelligent, creative, or responsible, they become, in short order, dispensable."
A statue of St. Paul the Apostle sits outside the entrance to St. Peter's Basilica inside Vatican City. (iStock)
He concluded, "If you doubt me on this, take a good hard look at the death camps of the twentieth century. I’m very proud that the Church has taken this strong and articulate stand in favor of the dignity of each human person."
Dignitas Infinita offers insight into the Catholic Church's perspective on more than 14 key ethical issues the Vatican believes require more intense consideration from society.
Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at
