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Vatican Bishop: Humanity Heading for “Self-Genocide”

Weakness of Christian community and growth of secularism the cause

By Hilary White

ABUJA, January 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bishop Elio Sgreccia, named in 2005 by Pope John Paul II as the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has told a group of journalists that the world is “marching toward a self-genocide of the human race” with the irresponsible use of biotechnologies and the widespread acceptance of the culture of death.

Calling them nothing more than a “craving for power,” these technological innovations, he said, aim “to change the order of the human species” and to create “men in the image and likeness of other men who have power.”  

Bishop Sgreccia blamed the “weakness of the Christian community and the strength of secular society” for the advance of the culture of death. Secular society, he said, “now defends the selecting of children so that each one is perfect, without defect, and the eliminating of those that do not fulfil these conditions.”

Sgreccia said the biotechnological “quest for omnipotence …aims to transform the very structure of human nature and in this way liberate it from all cultural precedent.”

The bishop, who has authored volumes of authoritative texts on bioethics and has been the Vatican’s resident bioethics expert, spoke to local reporters at a meeting at the University of Saint Paul.

The biotechnology alarm is beginning to sound throughout the Catholic world. Earlier this month Sgreccia gave the keynote address at a bioethics conference organized in Mandaluyong City by the Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines where he warned against the trend of couples seeking “perfect” children and eliminating the imperfect by prenatal diagnosis.

At the January 9-10 conference, bishops and clergy were warned to beware of “death laws” that are encroaching on nations the world over. These include, said Conference chairman Bishop Angel Lagdameo, “euthanasia, divorce, abortion, total depopulation and the homosexual agenda.”

In early January North American doctors recommended policy changes to make genetic screening for Down’s syndrome mandatory for all pregnant women.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
International Right to Life Leaders Call World Leaders to Revisit "Prophetic" Warnings of Humanae Vitae
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07010901.html

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