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15 / 12 / 2008 - Youth Defence welcome Dignitas Personae `unequivocal and timely` call to respect Life
See also: Vatican denounces experimentation on embryonic humans
Youth Defence has given a warm welcome to the December 8th instruction from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae. YD Chairman, Eoghan de Faoite, said that “all the conclusions of the document are based on the inherent dignity of each and every human person from conception to natural death, and these conclusions are particularly important just now as we join in battle against the threat of embryo research in UCC.”
The document is an instruction from the Catholic Church’s highest doctrinal agency, and applies timeless moral principles to some new issues and situations arising from biotechnology. It does not declare a new infallibly defined dogma, but is approved by Pope Benedict XVI and has his authority.
Like most Church teachings, its moral judgments are part of the “universal ordinary magisterium.” Catholics are called to inform their consciences with such teaching, adhering to it with “religious assent” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 892).
”This valuable instruction is entitled ‘Dignitas Personae’ meaning ‘the dignity of a person,” said Eoghan de Faoite. “It explains the need for all technology and other human activity to respect that dignity- a crucial need, given the distortion of scientific ethics we are facing in these times.”
While the Church must make a negative judgment about some misuses of technology, the Instruction explains: “Behind every ‘no’ in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great ‘yes’ to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence.”
The instruction is chiefly a sequel to “Donum Vitae: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” issued by the Congregation in 1987 to address human “in vitro” fertilization (IVF) and the abuse and manipulation of human life in its earliest stages that this technology made possible. Other judgments in the document – on human cloning, embryonic and adult stem cell research, genetic engineering, drugs and devices for preventing implantation, etc. – confirm and elaborate statements made in past speeches or other documents from Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, or in the Holy See’s interventions at international forums such as the United Nations. In recent years these topics have also been the subject of symposia and/or documents from the advisory body, the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Source : Youth Defence
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Youth Defence has given a warm welcome to the December 8th instruction from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae. YD Chairman, Eoghan de Faoite, said that “all the conclusions of the document are based on the inherent dignity of each and every human person from conception to natural death, and these conclusions are particularly important just now as we join in battle against the threat of embryo research in UCC.”
The document is an instruction from the Catholic Church’s highest doctrinal agency, and applies timeless moral principles to some new issues and situations arising from biotechnology. It does not declare a new infallibly defined dogma, but is approved by Pope Benedict XVI and has his authority.
Like most Church teachings, its moral judgments are part of the “universal ordinary magisterium.” Catholics are called to inform their consciences with such teaching, adhering to it with “religious assent” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 892).
”This valuable instruction is entitled ‘Dignitas Personae’ meaning ‘the dignity of a person,” said Eoghan de Faoite. “It explains the need for all technology and other human activity to respect that dignity- a crucial need, given the distortion of scientific ethics we are facing in these times.”
While the Church must make a negative judgment about some misuses of technology, the Instruction explains: “Behind every ‘no’ in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great ‘yes’ to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence.”
The instruction is chiefly a sequel to “Donum Vitae: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” issued by the Congregation in 1987 to address human “in vitro” fertilization (IVF) and the abuse and manipulation of human life in its earliest stages that this technology made possible. Other judgments in the document – on human cloning, embryonic and adult stem cell research, genetic engineering, drugs and devices for preventing implantation, etc. – confirm and elaborate statements made in past speeches or other documents from Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI, or in the Holy See’s interventions at international forums such as the United Nations. In recent years these topics have also been the subject of symposia and/or documents from the advisory body, the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Source : Youth Defence