The Pope on Stem Cell Research

October 9, 2006

Last month the Vatican hosted a symposium entitled, “Stem Cells: What Future For Therapy?” Pope Benedict’s remarks have recently been translated into English and posted on the Vatican website.

One section that stands out are the remarks he made in response to the false charge that the Roman Catholic church is anti-stem cell research.

If there has been resistance—and if there still is—it was and is to those forms of research that provide for the planned suppression of human beings who already exist, even if they have not yet been born. Research, in such cases, irrespective of efficacious therapeutic results is not truly at the service of humanity.

In fact, this research advances through the suppression of human lives that are equal in dignity to the lives of other human individuals and the lives of the researchers themselves.

History itself has condemned such a science in the past and will condemn it in the future, not only because it lacks the light of God but also because it lacks humanity.