Pope Downgrades the Church's Message on Bioethics

Edit: this came in the e-mail with the observation from a reader that the pope is outrageous to say this.  I'm sure we've all heard this sort of thing from the elderly Call to Action lady, the Sinsenawa Dominican who serves as an escort at an abortuary or a fly by night Nouvelle Theologian.  Surely, the Church has a privileged voice in this field and to suggest otherwise is monstrous. What of the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly and most fragile members of society?    Francis doesn't feel the same when it comes to the myth of man-made global warming, does he?

Here's something from Vatican Downslider:

“Everyone is aware of how sensitive the Church is to ethical issues but perhaps it is not clear to everyone that the Church does not lay claim to a privileged voice in this field…,” Pope Francis said in a meeting with the Italian Committee for Bioethics today, highlighting the risk of utility and profit being the only reference points for developments in science and biological and medical technologies. He urged this advisory body of the Italian government, headed by Francesco Paolo Casavola, a Catholic, to look further into environmental degradation, “disability and the marginalisation of vulnerable individuals”. He asked them in other words to tackle the challenge of countering today’s “throwaway culture” which “takes on many forms, including treating human embryos as disposable material, as well as sick and elderly people approaching the end”. The Pope also asked them to harmonise standards and norms in the biological and medical fields.

Just monstrous:

Bioethics, established by the President of the Council for Ministers in Italy 25 years ago,” Francis said. “Everyone is aware of how sensitive the Church is to ethical issues but perhaps it is not clear to everyone that the Church does not lay claim to a privileged voice in this field; in fact it is a source of great satisfaction for the Church when civic responsibility at different levels is able to reflect, discern and act according to a free and open way of thinking and inspired by integral human and social values. This mature civic responsibility is a sign that the seed of the Gospel – which has been revealed and entrusted to the Church – has produced fruits, successfully fostering the search for truth and good in complex human and ethical questions”