The video above was recorded on Sunday, April 14, 2024, and followed the email below to the St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Minneapolis congregation, April 11, 2024.
Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. 1 John 3:2
If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new. 2 Cor. 5:17
Dear Friends,
Earlier this week, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Dignitas Infinita, a declaration of Roman Catholic doctrine. According to America, an online magazine published by the Jesuit order, the document was approved by Pope Francis, and “reaffirms the Catholic Church’s traditional teaching on abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, but also updates it by denouncing some newer forms of violation of that dignity in the 21st century, such as surrogacy and the promotion of gender theory.”
In its discussion of “Sex Change,” the document affirms that “the human body shares in the dignity of ‘the image of God,’” and builds on Amoris Laetitia (“the Joy of Love”), a 2016 “apostolic exhortation” from Pope Francis, where he wrote that “creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created,” extrapolating that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
I see this differently, and I lament that Dignitas infinita damages the hope and dignity of Roman Catholics and those who already are bravely trying to live into their true and as yet unrevealed divine nature are suffering the consequences of living with integrity and truth, only to find new reason to doubt the sincerity and fidelity of the Church that purports to love them.
The Episcopal Church is not bound by Roman Catholic doctrine, but our shared* identity traces back to the 16thcentury, and many Episcopalians, including many Cathedral members, are former Roman Catholics, and remain in close relationship to Roman Catholic friends and family members. What happens in one part of the Body of Christ has an effect on the Body as a whole. I grieve for the pain and violence that Dignitas Infinita has brought to the bodies and souls of members of this congregation, and millions more around the world.
The infinite dignity of the People of God was established at our creation because we were made in the image and likeness of God. The infinite diversity of humanity is not a defect of that creation, but an insight into the nature of God. The particularity of any one human, including the incarnation of God in Jesus the Christ, is a finite expression that points to the infinite dignity of God that we share. In the Collect of the Day for the Second Sunday after Christmas, we pray, “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity.” That’s an expression of the Doctrine of Divinization, articulated by St. Athanasius of Alexandria: “[God] was made man that we might be made God.”
Because we share in the eternal dignity of God, we know that this dignity can be insulted, ridiculed, offended, and hung on a cross, but it cannot be diminished. On the contrary, those who do the hard work of amending our selves, our souls and bodies, and specifically those who comprise our trans community, bear witness with their courage and devotion to truth and God’s infinite love. Their presence and leadership at St. Mark’s is a gift and an example to all of us that resurrection life changes everything and frees the whole creation from slavery and despair.
Much love and respect to all of you.
Lane+
* The word “shared” was omitted by mistake in the original email.
Canticle S: “A Song of Our True Nature,”
St. Julian of Norwich
Enriching Our Worship 1, p. 40
Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, *
our trespasses and our humiliations.
Christ also revealed his blessed power, *
his blessed wisdom and love.
He protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need; *
he raises us in spirit and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.
God is the ground and the substance, the very essence of nature; *
God is the true father and mother of natures.
We are all bound to God by nature, *
and we are all bound to God by grace.
And this grace is for all the world, *
because it is our precious mother, Christ.
For this fair nature was prepared by Christ
for the honor and nobility of all, *
and for the joy and bliss of salvation.