Dignitas Personae

The Vatican ^ | 12.12.2008 | The Roman Curia

[annalex]

Ping.

All, please avoid generalized dispute about Catohlicism. The topic is dignity or person and bioethics.

[Tax-chick]

I’m about 15 pages into the document. It’s very substantial.

[annalex]

I am confused. This is not the full text? What are you reading? Got link?

[Tax-chick]

http://ncronline.org/mainpage/specialdocuments/Dignitas_Personae_Inglese.pdf

[timm22]

Procedures used on somatic cells for strictly therapeutic purposes “are in principle morally licit…

With regard to germ line cell therapy, “the risks connected to any genetic manipulation are considerable and as yet not fully controllable” and therefore “in the present state of research, it is not morally permissible to act in a way that may cause possible harm to the resulting progeny

This is very interesting. It would appear that the Church does not view gene therapy as inherently immoral.

Is this a new position for the Church?

[annalex]

Great.

So that’s where the footnotes are, too.

[annalex]

The Church always supported anything that is strictly therapeutic.

[Tax-chick]

Yup. The whole thing was very informative.

[Tax-chick]

The complete document goes into more detail on the different types of gene therapy, emphasizing caution in any use of genetic treatment.

[timm22]

The Church always supported anything that is strictly therapeutic.

Which seems reasonable to me, but I've seen Catholic Freepers argue against that point on other threads.

[tiki]

In a nutshell, the Church is for life. Therapies that do not destroy life and can make a life better are not immoral.

[tiki]

Can you give us an example?

[trisham]

The dreaded PDF file!

[Tax-chick]

You can print it out and take it to the bathtub :-). My catz love it when I print long documents. They watch the printer very closely and mumble to each other as each page comes out.

[trisham]

I've learned a lot since discovering the Religion forum. :)

It's amazing how much I've learned simply trying to answer a question posed to Catholics in general.

[Tax-chick]

It’s very informative for me, too.

[timm22]

Can you give us an example?

This is the thread I was referring to. The consensus there seemed to be that even a nondestructive, therapeutic use of genetic engineering would be immoral.

[Dajjal]

bumpus ad summum

[annalex]

The consensus there seemed to be that even a nondestructive, therapeutic use of genetic engineering would be immoral

But it is not the therapeutic aspect that would be immoral. The context on that thread was "designer babies", and you yourself seem to suggest it by making the contact lens analogy.

Beside destruction of embryo, even in therapeutic use we should distinguish between a health defect and cosmetic improvements. Further, the Church doesn't like any usurpation of the power of God as creator of life.