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POTUS meets PETER: Pope Defends the 'Dignity of Life'

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Pope Benedict XVI gave the U.S. President a copy of 'The Dignity of the Human Person' which strongly defends all human life.

Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

Highlights

By Deacon Keith Fournier
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
7/10/2009 (1 decade ago)

Published in Europe

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - The official photographs depict the cordial nature of the exchange between the Pope and the US President. The Holy See released the official Vatican communiqué on the meeting between the President of the United States (POTUS) and the successor of the Apostle Peter and Vicar of Christ:

"This afternoon, Friday 10 July 2009, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI received in Audience the President of the United States of America, His Excellency Mr. Barack H. Obama. Prior to the Audience, the President met His Eminence Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, and also His Excellency Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States.

"In the course of their cordial exchanges the conversation turned first of all to questions which are in the interests of all and which constitute a great challenge for the future of every nation and for the true progress of peoples, such as the defense and promotion of life and the right to abide by one's conscience.(emphasis added)

"Reference was also made to immigration with particular attention to the matter of reuniting families. "The meeting focused as well upon matters of international politics, especially in light of the outcome of the G8 Summit. The conversation also dealt with the peace process in the Middle East, on which there was general agreement, and with other regional situations. Certain current issues were then considered, such as dialogue between cultures and religions, the global economic crisis and its ethical implications, food security, development aid especially for Africa and Latin America, and the problem of drug trafficking. Finally, the importance of educating young people everywhere in the value of tolerance was highlighted."

However, the real story was broken by Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service. It appeared on the CNS blog (http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/pope-gives-obama-bioethics-document/). She reported that Pope Benedict XVI gave his own gift to the U.S. President, a copy of the extraordinary document entitled "Dignitas Personae" ("The Dignity of a Person"). This instruction was released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on September 8, 2008. It is a passionate defense of the dignity of every single human life from the moment of conception until natural death.

As is the custom with "magisterial" documents, the title of this instruction was taken from the first line, "The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death". The document continues, "This fundamental principle expresses a great "yes" to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research, which has an ever greater importance in today's world."

Wooden reported that she was in the Vatican bookstore prior to the arrival of the President of the United States and, in her own words "While I was trying to pay, the cashier was interrupted by a phone call and she made me wait while she went to the shelves. She pulled the last two English copies of the document off the shelf and put them on her desk.Msgr. Georg Ganswein, the pope's personal secretary, told reporters the document would help Obama understand the church's reasoning behind its efforts to protect human life at every stage of its development."

Many have speculated as to what would occur in this meeting. Some had the audacity to criticize the Holy Father for meeting with US President at all because of the President's failure to recognize the preeminent Human Right to Life. However, in the words of a dear Protestant friend of mine "This Pope knows how to Pope!" Pope Benedict XVI met his guest, showed him the love of Christ and offered him the Truth, the greatest gift one can ever give. The Instruction presented to the US President contains a profound defense of the dignity of every human life, a call to respect the goods and ends of marriage and insists on the necessity of having authentic moral criteria within which to evaluate all alleged advances in medical science.

The Catholic Church is not against science. Rather, she insists that good science must always respect the first goods; life, marriage and the common good. All Catholic Christians should read this well written teaching document and pray that the U.S. President does the same. The document is addressed "all who seek the truth". It presents the truth by drawing upon the "light both of reason and faith and seeks to set forth an integral vision of man and his vocation". It explains that any use of the so called "new technologies" must respect that the human body is never an "it" - but an "I" - some-one who must never be treated as an object, "The body of a human being, from the very first stages of its existence, can never be reduced merely to a group of cells. The embryonic human body develops progressively according to a well defined program with its proper finality, as is apparent in the birth of every baby."

The insistence upon this framework for evaluating biomedicine finds support in the history of other advances in Medical Science. The ethical criterion is revealed in the Natural Law, namely the fundamental right to life and the dignity of every human person. This right is knowable by and binding upon all men and women and is not simply a "religious" construct. Footnote 7 within the document cites Pope Benedict XVI's presentation to the United Nations in April of 2008 which summarizes this point well: "Human rights...in particular the right to life of every human being "are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights"

It is in light of this fundamental moral criterion that the instruction discusses human sexuality and marital love, procreation and infertility treatments and the "manipulation of the embryo or the human Genetic Patrimony". The section concerning gene therapy and the therapeutic use of stem cells, distinguishing both the types of cells and the techniques used to obtain them, is one of the best explanations of the complex technologies which I have ever read. The Church encourages the use of adult stem cells and stem cells which can be derived from non-lethal uses such as fetal cord blood. These technologies do not take human embryonic lives and have also been the subject of amazing scientific progress. No matter how many efforts there are to dismiss Catholic teaching in this fundamental area of ethics, the opponents of the truth which she defends will not prevail because her teaching is true, it is never right to take innocent human life.

Here are some words from the Instruction: "Just as a century ago it was the working classes which were oppressed in their fundamental rights, and the Church courageously came to their defense by proclaiming the sacrosanct rights of the worker as person, so now, when another category of persons is being oppressed in the fundamental right to life, the Church feels in duty bound to speak out with the same courage on behalf of those who have no voice. Hers is always the evangelical cry in defense of the world's poor, those who are threatened and despised and whose human rights are violated".

"In virtue of the Church's doctrinal and pastoral mission, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has felt obliged to reiterate both the dignity and the fundamental and inalienable rights of every human being, including those in the initial stages of their existence, and to state explicitly the need for protection and respect which this dignity requires of everyone. The fulfillment of this duty implies courageous opposition to all those practices which result in grave and unjust discrimination against unborn human beings, who have the dignity of a person, created like others in the image of God. 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 Christian faithful will commit themselves to the energetic promotion of a new culture of life by receiving the contents of this Instruction with the religious assent of their spirit, knowing that God always gives the grace necessary to observe his commandments and that, in every human being, above all in the least among us, one meets Christ himself (cf. Mt 25:40). In addition, all persons of good will, in particular physicians and researchers open to dialogue and desirous of knowing what is true, will understand and agree with these principles and judgments, which seek to safeguard the vulnerable condition of human beings in the first stages of life and to promote a more human civilization."

Let us pray that after this meeting between POTUS and Peter, President Barack Obama will spend his time on the plane home reading this gift he received from Peter and be converted to the truth concerning the Dignity of all Human Persons.

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