by
Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 19,
2005
The Vatican (LifeNews.com) -- The following is a compilation
of quotes from new Pope Benedict XVI, former German cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, on abortion and bioethics issues such as euthanasia and embryonic
stem cell research:
--
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and
euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy
Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to
wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present
himself to receive Holy Communion."
-- "While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not
war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on
criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor
or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate
diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying
the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
-- "Man is capable of producing another man in the laboratory who, therefore, is no longer a gift of God or of nature. He can be fabricated and, just as he can be fabricated, he can be destroyed."
-- Ratzinger said the power that human cloning gives to mankind, to
be able to create and destroy human life so easily, proves "he
is becoming a more dangerous threat than weapons of mass destruction."
-- "The arrogance that makes us think that we ourselves can create human beings has turned man into a kind of merchandise, to be bought and sold, or stored to provide parts for experimentation. In doing this, we hope to conquer death by our own efforts, yet in reality we are profoundly debasing human dignity."
-- "Scripture, in fact, clearly excludes every form of the kind of self-determination of human existence that is presupposed in the theory and practice of euthanasia."
-- "When, as today, there is a market in human organs, when fetuses are produced to make spare organs available, or to make progress in research and preventive medicine, many regard the human content of these practices as implicit. But the contempt for man that underlies it, when man is used and abused, leads -- like it or not -- to a descent into hell."
--
"Where man is no longer seen as one who is under the particular
protection of God, there begins the barbarism which tramples on humanity.
Where the sense of the singular dignity of each person, in the light
of God's design, is lost, there the project of mankind is horribly deformed,
and his freedom, devoid of rule, becomes monstrous."
