Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that God makes no distinction between a human embryo and a child or adult.
The Pope made his comments while hosting a Vatican-organized scientific conference on the status of the human embryo.
"God's love doesn't make the distinction between the embryo inside its mother, the child, the youth, the mature adult or the elderly person," said the pope.
The pontiff's statement reaffirmed the Catholic church's official position that "all human life is sacred and inviolable, from conception to its natural end."
The Pontifical Academy for Life, an institute created in 1994 by the late John Paul II, organized the international, two-day congress on the embryo in its pre-implant stage.
This refers to the first days after conception, before the embryo has had a chance to imbed in its mother's uterus.
The Catholic church opposes tampering with life at any stage of the process and is against abortion, the "morning after" pill -- which takes effect before the embryo has implanted -- and all experimentation with the human embryo.
We must "reflect on the nature of the embryo to give it a judicial status," said Monsignor Jean Lafitte, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
"We can't just dispose of human life like we would dispose of a chemical or biological material," said Lafitte.
The French priest, who was appointed by Benedict XVI in January, also spoke out against frozen human embryos, calling their existence "undignified of a human being."
Some anti-abortion groups advocate the adoption of frozen embryos that are not destined to be implanted in the mother, but Lafitte admitted that opinions on the matter differed.
While Lafitte said that one day the Church would undoubtedly make a ruling on the issue, he said the first order of the day was to "promote a culture of respect for human life, which discourages this sort of absurd situation from developing in the first place."
John Paul II said the Academy's mission was to reflect and inform on "the principal medical issues relative to the promotion and the defense of life, in line with Christian morals and the guidelines of the Catholic church."
In a 1995 encyclical entitled "Evangelium Vitae" (Evangelist for Life) John Paul II condemned the "culture of death" promoted by both abortion and euthanasia.
nou/eb/mh
Vatican-pope-life
AFP 271437 GMT 02 06
COPYRIGHT 2004 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
