VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A new study by the International Theological Commission reflecting on the future of humanity in light of technological change reiterates the concept of “infinite human dignity” previously affirmed by Pope Francis and his doctrinal head Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández.
On March 4, the International Theological Commission published a study titled Quo vadis, humanitas? Thinking Through Christian Anthropology in the Face of Certain Scenarios for the Future of Humanity, a theological reflection examining contemporary technological and cultural developments and proposing a renewed presentation of Christian anthropology.
“Being a human person, with an infinite dignity, is not something we have constructed or acquired, but the fruit of a free gift that precedes us,” the document states. “[It is] something that exists for ever as a gift in every circumstance of our existence, becoming a non-transferable task.”
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The study seeks to address questions raised by developments such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other forms of technological transformation. Its stated objective is to “re-proposing Christian anthropology” – understood as the theological account of the nature and vocation of the human person – “in an open and critical dialogue with the more recent questions coming from human experience and cultures.”
The document outlines transhumanism as confidence in technology to surpass biological limits, and posthumanism as “an existential expression of escapism, which starts from a radical devaluation of the human.” Both are seen as attempts to resolve the “tension” between human limitation and the desire to transcend it, but the document argues we “cannot find a solution in any form of substitution or suppression of the human.” The study then argues that this “tension” finds its true resolution in Jesus Christ, where human life reaches “fulfilment.”
However, the underlying idea of the document is that the human person possesses an “infinite” dignity, and therefore an irrevocable and unalterable one. This view – explicitly formulated during Pope Francis’s pontificate in the 2024 declaration Dignitas infinita – is problematic because it departs significantly from the traditional theological understanding, according to which only God’s dignity is infinite, while human dignity varies according to the person’s condition.
Human dignity was elevated in the state of original justice, wounded by original sin, healed and elevated again through the grace merited by Christ’s Redemption, and forfeited in its supernatural form through personal mortal sin, though the ontological dignity of the human person remains. One cannot therefore speak of an infinite human dignity merely on the basis of being a creature of God.
Incidentally, the traditional doctrine of human dignity also explains why the Church has always considered capital punishment morally permissible, and why the new vision of “infinite” dignity has instead led to a strong abolitionist stance.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines dignity as “the intrinsic goodness of a being.” If human dignity were truly infinite, human rights would also be infinite – an implication that wrongly attributes to man a property belonging to God alone: infinity.
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Claiming an “infinite” human dignity effectively sidelines the doctrine of original sin, as it suggests a limitless human goodness. This is incompatible with Christian anthropology, which affirms that human nature is finite, wounded, and in need of redemption.
Human dignity described as “infinite” aligns more closely with Masonic anthropology than with Catholic tradition, because it attributes to the human person a limitless and indestructible value that Catholic theology reserves to God alone.
Several other elements of the study appear problematic. First, the document does not explicitly present natural law as the foundational framework of Christian anthropology and ethics. Instead, it explicitly refers to an earlier International Theological Commission text, In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law (2009), which interprets natural law less as a set of objective norms deduced from human nature and more as a moral awareness emerging from immediate human experience. In that perspective, the perception and application of natural law are described as historically conditioned rather than permanent, and the various religious traditions are presented as contexts in which this moral awareness is expressed.
Second, the study frequently employs the language of “tension” to describe the human condition – particularly the tension between human limitation and the “desire to transcend.” Such terminology may lend itself to an existential interpretation in which moral life is described primarily as a “process of discernment,” while explicit reference to stable moral norms is largely absent.
Finally, the document introduces the notion of a “situated anthropocentrism” (n. 19), a concept associated with Francis’ ecological theology, according to which “human life cannot be understood or sustained apart from the other creatures.”
The text was authorized for publication on February 9, 2026, by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, after receiving the approval of Pope Leo XIV. This, then, means that Pope Leo is clearly adopting the mistaken idea of an infinite human dignity.
That this was the case had in fact already become evident from other circumstances. On January 29, 2026, during an audience granted to members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith at the conclusion of their plenary session, Leo thanked Fernández for several doctrinal texts published under the dicastery’s supervision, referring specifically to the 2024 declaration Dignitas infinita.
“Your task is to offer clarifications regarding the doctrine of the Church, through pastoral and theological guidance on often very sensitive issues,” the Pope said. He added that in recent years the dicastery had issued several documents, including Dignitas infinita, “which reiterated the infinite dignity of every human being, seriously endangered nowadays, in particular by ongoing wars and an economy that prioritizes profit.”
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Furthermore, the affirmation of an “infinite” and therefore irrevocable dignity of the human person is compatible with the bioethical framework commonly known as the “seamless garment,” or “Consistent Life Ethic.” This approach, formulated in the 1980s by progressive Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, holds that all moral questions involving human life – such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, war, poverty, or migration – are intrinsically connected and must be addressed within a unified moral perspective.
If human dignity is conceived as ontologically infinite and incapable of diminution, every offense against human life tends to appear as equally serious in principle, since each concerns the same absolute value of the person. In this framework, the traditional hierarchical distinction among moral evils affecting life can become attenuated, since different acts are interpreted primarily as violations of the same inviolable dignity.
Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly expressed positions consistent with this moral perspective, condemning abortion while simultaneously placing it within a broader catalogue of “social evils” affecting human life.
