“Here, too, when the common reference to values and ultimately to God is lost, society will then appear merely as an ensemble of individuals placed side by side, and the contract which ties them together will necessarily be perceived as an accord among those who have the power to impose their will on others.”
[click to continue...]Creating Genetically-Engineered Babies Crosses the Threshold of Moral Permissibility
Then-Cardinal Ratzinger goes on to liken this present situation to Genesis 3, following the Fall. God kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and then He places angels to stand guard to bar the first humans’ reentry. Man was prohibited from eating from the tree that gave immortality, “since,” as Ratzinger explains, “to be immortal in this [fallen] condition would… be perdition.” Scientists “with genetic codes available to them [are] starting to pick from the tree of life and make themselves the lords of life and death, to reassemble life…”
[click to continue...]Cardinal Ratzinger on the Fallout of the So-Called ‘Sexual Freedom Movement’
“No longer having an objective reason to justify it, sex seeks the subjective reason in the gratification of the desire, in the most ‘satisfying’ answer for the individual, to the instincts no longer subject to rational restraints. Everyone is free to give to his personal libido the content considered suitable for himself.”
[click to continue...]What is the Source of Human Dignity?: Bioethics And Natural Law
“In fact, from the very first instant of the human being’s life is characterized by the fact that it is human life and for this reason possesses its own dignity everywhere and in spite of all (cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae). Otherwise, we should always be threatened by the risk of an exploitative use of science, with the inevitable consequence of slipping into arbitrary decisions, discrimination and the financial interest of the strongest.
[click to continue...]