In its ini­tial three sec­tions, the Dec­la­ra­tion recalls fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples and the­o­ret­i­cal premis­es, with the goal of offer­ing impor­tant clar­i­fi­ca­tions that can help avoid fre­quent con­fu­sion that sur­rounds the use of the term “dig­ni­ty.” The fourth sec­tion presents some cur­rent and prob­lem­at­ic sit­u­a­tions in which the immense and inalien­able dig­ni­ty due to every human being is not suf­fi­cient­ly rec­og­nized. The Church sees the con­dem­na­tion of these grave and cur­rent vio­la­tions of human dig­ni­ty as a nec­es­sary mea­sure, for she sus­tains the deep con­vic­tion that we can­not sep­a­rate faith from the defense of human dig­ni­ty, evan­ge­liza­tion from the pro­mo­tion of a dig­ni­fied life, and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty from a com­mit­ment to the dig­ni­ty of every human being.

This dig­ni­ty of every human being can be under­stood as “infi­nite” (dig­ni­tas infini­ta), as Pope St. John Paul II affirmed in a meet­ing for peo­ple liv­ing with var­i­ous lim­i­ta­tions or dis­abil­i­ties.[1] He said this to show how human dig­ni­ty tran­scends all out­ward appear­ances and spe­cif­ic aspects of people’s lives.

In Fratel­li Tut­ti, Pope Fran­cis want­ed to under­score that this dig­ni­ty exists “beyond all cir­cum­stances.” With this, he sum­moned all peo­ple to defend human dig­ni­ty in every cul­tur­al con­text and every moment of human exis­tence, regard­less of phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, social, or even moral defi­cien­cies. The Dec­la­ra­tion strives to show that this is a uni­ver­sal truth that we are all called to rec­og­nize as a fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion for our soci­eties to be tru­ly just, peace­ful, healthy, and authen­ti­cal­ly human.

Although not com­pre­hen­sive, the top­ics dis­cussed in this Dec­la­ra­tion are select­ed to illu­mi­nate dif­fer­ent facets of human dig­ni­ty that might be obscured in many people’s con­scious­ness. Some top­ics may res­onate more with some sec­tors of soci­ety than oth­ers. Nev­er­the­less, all of them strike us as being nec­es­sary because, tak­en togeth­er, they help us rec­og­nize the har­mo­ny and rich­ness of the thought about human dig­ni­ty that flows from the Gospel.

This Dec­la­ra­tion does not set out to exhaust such a rich and cru­cial sub­ject. Instead, its aim is to offer some points for reflec­tion that can help us main­tain an aware­ness of human dig­ni­ty amid the com­plex his­tor­i­cal moment in which we are liv­ing. This is so that we may not lose our way and open our­selves up to more wounds and pro­found suf­fer­ings amid the numer­ous con­cerns and anx­i­eties of our time.

Víc­tor Manuel Card. Fernández
Prefect