We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.
We should respond to the advances of bioethics with a call to defend life.
- The new Pope Video is dedicated to the challenges of bioethics and how to respond to them based on human dignity and the defense of life.
- Aware of the profound changes in the world caused by the advances of bioethics, the Pope invites us to advance with them without contributing to the throw-away culture and while seeking biotechnological applications that are responsible and respectful towards the human person and the environment.
- Francis calls all Christians not to “hide our head like an ostrich” and to promote the defense of life.
Text of he Video: Let us pray that we may give a Christian response to bioethical challenges.
It is evident that science has progressed, and today the field of bioethics presents us with a series of problems to which we must respond, not hiding our head like an ostrich.
Applications of biotechnological must always be used based on respect for human dignity.
For example, human embryos cannot be treated as disposable material, to be discarded. This throw-away culture is also applied to them; no, that can’t be done. Extending that culture this way does so much harm.
Or allowing financial gain to condition biomedical research.
We need to understand the profound changes that are taking place with an even more profound and subtle discernment.
It’s not a matter of curbing technological advances. No, we must accompany them. It’s about protecting both human dignity and progress. That is to say, we cannot pay the price of human dignity for progress, no. Both go together, in harmony.
We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.
Pope Francis March 2022