Dignitas Infinita with Mae Forrest Barnes

Welcome to today's episode of Queer PoliFaith! Today, I am talking with Mae Forrest Barnes about Dignitas Infinita, the document that the Catholic Church put out a few months ago. I talked about it here. Mae Forrest Barnes is a theologian and PhD candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Her area of focus is in disability studies, science, bioethics, and gender studies. She is a former United Methodist pastor, now laity in the Episcopal Church, and is looking forward to finishing her doctorate so that she can become a professor theology and ethics. She loves writing about numerous topics, including pop culture, literature, and more, which can be found on her blog on Substack, or on Twitter @dr_maeforrest. The essay specifically about Dignitas Infinita is here. Mae and I start off with some general thoughts about the document and then we talk about specific sections specifically abortion, surrogacy, gender theory, and sex change. We talk about how the document does some wonderful things, but then gives itself a lot of trouble and causes a lot of painful messiness. Mae will be back later in the fall to talk about the UMC General Convention that took place this year. Our next episode, on August 8, will be about the Immunity Decision from the Supreme Court. As always, please rate and review the podcast on whatever platform you listen to it on. You can follow the podcast on Instagram or Threads (@queerpolifaith). You can also send questions or comments to [email protected] Podcast theme music by Transistor.fm. Learn how to start a podcast here.