VATICAN CITY, January 10, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Speaking today to the diplomats to the Vatican from nearly every country in the world, Pope John Paul II stressed his New Years message – “overcome evil with good.”
That simple message, said the Pope, is “a guide to all in meeting the great challenges facing humanity today.”
And in mentioning those great challenges, the Pope commenced with life and then family issues, followed by food, peace and freedom.
“The first is the challenge of life,” said John Paul. “Life is the first gift which God has given us, it is the first resource which man can enjoy. The Church is called to proclaim “the Gospel of Life”. And the State has as its primary task precisely the safeguarding and promotion of human life,” he said.
Noting that the “challenge to life has grown in scale and urgency in recent years,” the Pope focused on attacks on “the beginning of human life, when human beings are at their weakest and most in need of protection.”
He mentioned specifically, “abortion, assisted procreation, the use of human embryonic stem cells for scientific research, and cloning” noting that the Church’s position against the anti-life procedures are “supported by reason and science,” He explained, “the human embryo is a subject identical to the human being which will be born at the term of its development. Consequently whatever violates the integrity and the dignity of the embryo is ethically inadmissible. Similarly, any form of scientific research which treats the embryo merely as a laboratory specimen is unworthy of man.”
Addressing specifically genetic research, the Pope added, “Scientific research in the field of genetics needs to be encouraged and promoted, but, like every other human activity, it can never be exempt from moral imperatives; research using adult stem cells, moreover, offers the promise of considerable success.”
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church also called attention to the attack on the family which he characterized as an attack on life. “The challenge to life has also emerged with regard to the very sanctuary of life: the family,” he said. Beyond social and cultural pressures which hurt family stability the Pope drew attention to the fact in some countries “the family is also threatened by legislation which – at times directly – challenge its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a man and a woman founded on marriage.”
John Paul II described the family as “a fruitful source of life and a fundamental and irreplaceable condition for the happiness of the individual spouses, for the raising of children and for the well-being of society, and indeed for the material prosperity of the nation.” Therefore, he warned that the family “must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man.”
With files from Vatican.va