Rorate Caeli

Pope to scientists: respect human life!

Hidden amidst the other Papal news of the day, the main portions of the Pope's speech to scientists, clerics, and others who are attending a congress on new [moral] possibilities for stem cell research in Rome, promoted by the Pontifical Academy for Life:

There must be no compromises nor tergiversations regarding the direct suppression of a human being; one cannot imagine that a society may fight crime efficaciously when [society] itself legalizes transgressions against nascent life. ...

Human welfare should be sought not only according to a universally valid finality, but also considering the methods used to reach it: a good end cannot at all justify intrinsically illicit means.