Pope Benedict XVI Address to participants in the Ordinary Assembly of the Pontifical
Academy for Life
(February 21, 2009) “Since the last century, when the Augustinian Abbot Gregor Mendel, discovered the laws of heredity of the characters, so as to be regarded as the founder of genetics, this science has really made great strides in the understanding of that language that is at the biological basis of determining the development of a living being,” said Pope Benedict XVI. He was addressing the 15th Ordinary Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, at Rome on Saturday, 21st of February. This International conference is held from February 20th to 21st, on the theme, “The New Frontiers of genetics and the Risk of Eugenics”. “This knowledge, inventions and the fruit of hard work of countless scholars can more easily reach not only a more effective and early diagnosis of genetic diseases, but also to produce therapies designed to alleviate the suffering of the sick and, in some cases, even to restore their hope of regaining health.,” expressed the Holy Father. The scope of research is also very open today and every day we opened new horizons still largely unexplored, he said. However, he cautioned them saying that “It is necessary to emphasize that man will always be bigger than everything that form his body, he, in fact, brings the power of thought, which is always stretched the truth about themselves and the world. The generation of man can never be reduced to a mere reproduction of a new individual of the human species, as well as with any animal. Each appear in the world of a person which is always a new creation.” Speaking on Eugenics he said that the risks of eugenics, the practice certainly is not new and had seen in the past to be unprecedented forms of real discrimination and violence . He called on them to reiterate with force the equal dignity of every human being by the very fact that they came to life. Developing biological, psychological, cultural or state of health can never become a discriminating factor, said Holy Father. Confidence in science can not forget the primacy of ethics in the game when there is human life.
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