Pope Francis has urged scientists not to take part in a “throwaway culture” by destroying human embryos in the search for a cure for Huntington’s disease.
“We know that no ends, even noble in themselves, such as a predicted utility for science, for other human beings or for society, can justify the destruction of human embryos,” the Pope said last week.
At a meeting with 1,700 people, many of whom suffer from the condition, Francis said that Jesus proved through His love that disease and sickness are “never an obstacle to encountering people”.
“Fragility is not an evil. And disease, which is an expression of fragility, cannot and must not make us forget that, in the eyes of God, our value is always priceless,” the Pontiff said.
The meeting was sponsored by HDdennomore (pronounced “Hidden no more”), a coalition of neuroscientists, research experts and institutes with the goal of “ending the stigma and shame around the disease”.
Huntington’s disease results in the death of brain cells and causes problems with a person’s mental abilities, body coordination and movement.
Acknowledging the “shame, isolation and abandonment” faced by those with the disorder, the Pope said that, for too long, people with Huntington’s disease had been met with “misunderstandings and barriers, truly excluding them”.
Jesus’s closeness to the suffering, Pope Francis said, gave hope to the sick and the marginalised because “they felt they were listened to, respected and loved”.
“You are precious in the eyes of God; you are precious in the eyes of the Church,” he said.
Corpus Christi procession in Rome moved to Sunday
Corpus Christi will be celebrated in Rome on Sunday rather than Thursday next month.
Greg Burke, director of the Vatican press office, said the Pope had decided to postpone the celebration from June 15 to June 18.
Pope Francis made the decision, he said, “in favour of a better participation of the People of God, of priests and of the faithful of the Church in Rome.” He added: “There is a second reason: Thursday is a weekday and so there will be less inconvenience in Rome.”
A candlelit procession travels just over a mile from the Basilica of St John Lateran to the Basilica of St Mary Major.
Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the papal vicar of Rome, said that celebrating the feast on Sunday “can strengthen the participation of the faithful in this solemn, public act of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament”.
In the rest of Italy and in countries such as Britain and the United States, the feast is already celebrated on Sunday, but until now the Vatican has kept the traditional observance.
The bishops of England and Wales transferred the feasts of Corpus Christi, Ascension and Epiphany to the Sunday in 2006.
Commission ‘backs early visions’
A member of the Vatican commission on Medjugorje has commented on its findings.
The commission, founded by Benedict XVI, leaned towards recognising as “worthy of belief” only the initial alleged apparitions of Mary.
Fr Salvatore Perrella said, if this conclusion were officially endorsed, it would be the first time that the Church had distinguished between different phases of an alleged apparition.
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