# The Infinite Dignity of Every Human Person - Bishop Robert Barron

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 26 Aug 2026, 8:33.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72754555/dignitas_infinita.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: What's behind the Christian view. Well, then each individual human being,
[0:03] Speaker 1: no matter what their economic status or educational background, or
[0:08] Speaker 1: where they were born, or what their race or gender,
[0:11] Speaker 1: is that every human being is created by God, more
[0:14] Speaker 1: to it, redeemed by Christ, more to it destined for
[0:17] Speaker 1: eternal life. And from those theological convictions comes this idea
[0:22] Speaker 1: that each individual is the subject of dignity. Well, the
[0:47] Speaker 1: Vatican just came out with a document called Dignitas Infinita,
[0:51] Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of commentary upon it because
[0:53] Speaker 1: of what it says about gender theory and so on.
[0:56] Speaker 1: But I want to back away a bit from that
[0:58] Speaker 1: issue and look at three general themes that I think
[1:01] Speaker 1: are really worth spending some time with. First of all,
[1:05] Speaker 1: the title itself, the infinite dignity of the human person. Now,
[1:12] Speaker 1: I've bet a lot of people, especially in the West,
[1:13] Speaker 1: if you talk about the dignity of the individual person,
[1:17] Speaker 1: would say, well, yeah, of course that's true. But I
[1:22] Speaker 1: want to suggest it's that of course it's true, it
[1:25] Speaker 1: is not at all the right response. If you look
[1:28] Speaker 1: at political arrangements and cultural assumptions across the ages and
[1:32] Speaker 1: across the cultures, you'll find lots of exceptions to the
[1:37] Speaker 1: view that each individual human person is a subject of
[1:41] Speaker 1: infinite dignity. Look in the classical world, I mean that
[1:45] Speaker 1: the upper crust of society maybe was worthy of, you know, dignity,
[1:49] Speaker 1: but the ordinary person no way. Julius Caesar kills they
[1:54] Speaker 1: estimate a million people in his in his campaign in
[1:58] Speaker 1: Gaul and no one called them to take as though
[2:00] Speaker 1: he was violating people's dignity. Then you come right up
[2:04] Speaker 1: through the ages to our own time. Look at the
[2:06] Speaker 1: totalitarianisms of the last century, the dignity of each individual
[2:10] Speaker 1: human being. Come on in my own lifetime, maos China,
[2:14] Speaker 1: in Soviet Russia, I mean there was an enormous disrespect
[2:19] Speaker 1: Nazi Germany, obviously for the dignity of the individual. What
[2:24] Speaker 1: I want to draw attention to is how peculiar, and
[2:29] Speaker 1: I would say, with Tom Holland, the British historian, how
[2:32] Speaker 1: distinctively Christian this view is the fact that we take
[2:37] Speaker 1: it for granted in the West is the result of
[2:40] Speaker 1: our coming of age and a culture that's still largely
[2:43] Speaker 1: determine by Christian assumptions. What's behind the Christian view, well,
[2:48] Speaker 1: that each individual human being, no matter what their economic
[2:52] Speaker 1: status or educational background, or where they were born, or
[2:55] Speaker 1: what their race or gender is. That every human being
[2:58] Speaker 1: is created by God, more to it, redeemed by Christ,
[3:02] Speaker 1: more to it destined for eternal life. And from those
[3:05] Speaker 1: theological convictions comes this idea that each individual is the
[3:10] Speaker 1: subject of dignity. That's why I think is wonderful actually
[3:15] Speaker 1: that it's the pulpe. It's the greatest representative of Biblical
[3:19] Speaker 1: religion on earth. Who's making this claim about human dignity.
[3:25] Speaker 1: Now watch it. Here's the implication. Watch it when as
[3:28] Speaker 1: many in the West are suggesting, let's get rid of
[3:30] Speaker 1: old you know, Christianity, all depressive Christianity, Well, may I
[3:35] Speaker 1: suggest be very very careful about that, because you rip
[3:39] Speaker 1: this plant out of the soil of Christianity, I think
[3:43] Speaker 1: you'll find that the belief in human dignity even ass
[3:46] Speaker 1: is pretty quickly. Here's the second kind of general motif
[3:51] Speaker 1: that really struck me when I read the document, and
[3:53] Speaker 1: I've talked about it before, but the wonderful strangeness of
[3:57] Speaker 1: Catholic social teaching. What I mean here is it is
[4:01] Speaker 1: simply impossible to categorize Catholic social teaching according to our
[4:07] Speaker 1: clunky categories of left and right. Is Catholic social teaching liberal?
[4:13] Speaker 1: Is it conservative? Is it more like the Democrats, more
[4:15] Speaker 1: like the Republicans. I would defy anybody to read the
[4:19] Speaker 1: issues raised in this statement, the things that the Pope
[4:23] Speaker 1: feels violate human dignity, and tell me, oh, yeah, this
[4:27] Speaker 1: is clearly a Democratic party statement, or clearly a Republican
[4:32] Speaker 1: party statement. Clearly liberal, clearly conservative. Look what's mentioned explicitly,
[4:38] Speaker 1: great concern about the plight of migrants, great concern about
[4:41] Speaker 1: the curse of war, great concern about the situation of
[4:45] Speaker 1: those living in poverty, great concern about violence against women. Okay,
[4:50] Speaker 1: those are at least in the standard reading kind of
[4:53] Speaker 1: left wing preoccupations. And at the same time, violations of
[4:59] Speaker 1: human dignity include abortion, they include euthanasia, and indeed, gender ideology,
[5:05] Speaker 1: sex change, et cetera, all things that preoccupy the right.
[5:10] Speaker 1: More to it, there are things, for example, human trafficking
[5:12] Speaker 1: that come up that I think, well, pretty much everybody
[5:15] Speaker 1: is against. So is this left? Is it center? Is
[5:18] Speaker 1: it right? None of it? None of it. Catholic social
[5:22] Speaker 1: teaching beautifully transcends this split, and there's a lot of
[5:26] Speaker 1: reasons for that, and where this split came from but
[5:29] Speaker 1: Catholic social teaching. It's its glory. I think it's it's
[5:33] Speaker 1: its pride and joy that it transcends these easy political divides.
[5:40] Speaker 1: Here's the third thing that really struck me, and I
[5:42] Speaker 1: will touch here on the gender issues. And it's a
[5:45] Speaker 1: theme I've talked about everybody a lot, what I call
[5:48] Speaker 1: the culture of self invention. So in this letter, it's
[5:54] Speaker 1: Cardinal Fernandez who's responsible for it. The Pope has approved it.
[5:58] Speaker 1: They talk about the divorce between freedom and truth. This
[6:02] Speaker 1: is an old John Paul. The second theme too, isn't it.
[6:05] Speaker 1: There's such a valorization of freedom in much of the West.
[6:09] Speaker 1: It's become freedom run amok. It's freedom so divorced from
[6:14] Speaker 1: truth that freedom now has the right to determine truth,
[6:18] Speaker 1: to determine the nature of reality. You know, go back
[6:22] Speaker 1: to Casey versus Planned Parenthood nineteen ninety two in our country,
[6:25] Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court said it belongs to the very
[6:28] Speaker 1: nature of liberty to determine the meaning of one's life
[6:31] Speaker 1: and the meaning of existence. One most absurd things ever
[6:36] Speaker 1: said in the jurisprudence of our of any country, that
[6:40] Speaker 1: my freedom determines the nature of reality. But that's exactly
[6:44] Speaker 1: what we have today in our culture. And you see
[6:48] Speaker 1: it especially in regard to gender theory. I decide my gender, Well,
[6:54] Speaker 1: what about your body, which seems to be kind of
[6:57] Speaker 1: a given that we're created male and female? Oh? Who cares?
[7:02] Speaker 1: The body can be changed because freedom, my freedom is
[7:05] Speaker 1: so absolute. Well, this is exactly what the Church is
[7:09] Speaker 1: speaking out against, and thank God for it. Can I
[7:13] Speaker 1: read you just to quote directly from the letter I
[7:16] Speaker 1: thought was very telling. Listen, regarding gender theory, the Church
[7:20] Speaker 1: recalls a human life, both physical and spiritual, is a
[7:24] Speaker 1: gift from God. This gift is to be accepted with
[7:28] Speaker 1: gratitude and placed at the service of the good. Desiring
[7:33] Speaker 1: a personal self determination apart from this fundamental truth amounts
[7:38] Speaker 1: to a concession to the age old temptation to make
[7:41] Speaker 1: oneself God dead right, it seems to me he's going
[7:46] Speaker 1: right back. You know the Book of Genesis that when
[7:48] Speaker 1: we grasp at the tree of the knowledge of good
[7:51] Speaker 1: and evil, that means I determine for myself what's right
[7:55] Speaker 1: and wrong, what's good and bad. No, no, freedom surrenders
[7:59] Speaker 1: to the good. It surrenders to the truth and thereby
[8:03] Speaker 1: finds itself. So can I just say, you know, as
[8:07] Speaker 1: I conclude here thanks to Cardinal Fernandez and de Pope Francis,
[8:10] Speaker 1: because I think culture that's sounding increasingly insane. This letter
[8:17] Speaker 1: is an expression of sanity.

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