CATHOLIC Church officials said yesterday that the recent creation by researchers of the first synthetic cell can be a positive development if correctly used, but warned scientists that only God can create life.
An official with the Italian bishops’ conference, Bishop Domenico Mogavero, who heads the conference’s legal affairs department, expressed concern that scientists might be tempted to play God.
Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity.
He added that scientists:
Should never forget that there is only one creator: God. In the wrong hands, today’s development can lead tomorrow to a devastating leap in the dark.
Craig J Venter
According to this report, Vatican and Italian church officials were mostly cautious in their first reaction to the announcement from the United States that researchers had produced a living cell powered by man-made DNA. They warned scientists of the ethical responsibility of scientific progress and said that the manner in which the innovation is applied in the future will be crucial.
Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the Vatican’s top bioethics official who heads Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, told state-run TV:
If it is used toward the good, to treat pathologies, we can only be positive … If it turns out not to be … useful to respect the dignity of the person, then our judgment would change.
We look at science with great interest. But we think above all about the meaning that must be given to life. We can only reach the conclusion that we need God, the origin of life.
Catholic Church teaching holds that human life is God’s gift, created through natural procreation between a man and woman.
The inventors said the world’s first synthetic cell is more a re-creation of existing life—changing one simple type of bacterium into another—than a built-from-scratch kind. But genome-mapping pioneer J Craig Venter said his team’s project paves the way for designing organisms that work differently from the way nature intended for a wide range of uses.
A top Italian cardinal, Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian bishops’ conference, said the invention is:
Further sign of intelligence, God’s gift to understand creation and be able to better govern it. On the other hand, intelligence can never be without responsibility. Any form of intelligence and any scientific acquisition … must always be measured against the ethical dimension, which has at its heart the true dignity of every person.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:18 am
“Only God can create life”? Isn’t that the delusion researchers just disproved?
“tempted to play God”? It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:30 am
When I fed the information that US scientists had created life from non-life into a computer and asked it, “Is there a god?” it answered, “There is now.”
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:43 am
Clearly, not only God can create life.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:08 am
I’m always amazed that the catholic church dares to even mention the subject of science, except maybe to apologise for the many times they’ve gotten it horribly wrong.
A quick google turned up this treasure..
“HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/505/505-h/505-h.htm
(full text)
So, an entire book on how the church got science wrong throughout history. Here’s a random example from the book – vaccination!
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Venter should engineer a pathogen that turns xian brains into jelly.
Oh, hang on a minute. Haven’t they managed that all by themselves for that last two thousand years?
I would like to covertly obtain DNA from all the major fundies. We can’t do it just yet (I think mainly because of ethical hurdles) but it would be great to clone them. Can you imagine a new Stephen Green brought up in a secular environment, or an openly gay Rekers?
The Vatican spokesman said, “We look at science with great interest”. I’m sure they do, but more with a sense of fear and loathing as this advance is one more boot stamping on their gods bollocks. As for a Ratty clone? Mengele ran off a few seventy years ago and their all living peacefully in Brasil.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 am
I thought Rekers WAS openly gay, Broadsword!
Nice to hear a “top Italian cardinal” emphasising “the ethical dimension, which has at its heart the true dignity of every person.” The Catholic Church would know all about that, wouldn’t it?
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:49 am
@demotic
I imagine if we ever develop a HIV vaccine, Ratty’s boys would object as it would encourage promiscuity.
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:59 am
Of course – Scientific advancement “…can plunge men into a barbarity.”
There’s me thinking that following the primitive codes of bronze age savages and shunning advancements in morality leads to barbarity.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
LOL! The catholic church is still spouting off like they’re actually relevant. They lost that spot a few child molested children ago.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:26 am
Yes, Shargraves, there’s nothing barbaric about the Old Testament at all, is there?
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:27 am
Look 400 years ago he would have been tortured and then burned at the stake. Now the only issue mealy mouthed proclamations I think that is progress
He should remember only the Go Ancient Greek God Zeus can create life
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:06 am
Interesting to note the Vatican does ‘ethics’ and still feels it’s in a position to lecture the world. The abuse-cases haven’t vanished yet, guys! Netter pipe down a bit.
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:10 am
They wasted a whole lot of words when they really wanted to say, “We’re scared for our jobs!”
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:25 am
Eddie Izzards take on creation.Worth a watch if you haven’t already seen this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60T_6ubNFp4
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:53 am
So engineering cells to fight pathogens is OK – the pathogens themselves having been made by God?
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I always look to God for guidance on ethics.
“Drunk With Blood: All God’s Killings in the Bible”
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blo.....bible.html
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I should think any rational person would want to see ethics, rules and standard procedures applied to this advance (as they will be) – however RCC Inc. is the wrong organization to be lecturing the world about ethics. The only surprising thing is that cardinal bagnasco said ‘ethical’ and not the more usual’moral’…..
That aside this is one huge gap now denied to that ‘god-of-the-gaps’…..
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:16 pm
If only god can create life, there’d be no life, right? God has to exist for life to exist, right?
Or am I missing something here?
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Why don’t the religious extremists stick to fantasy and let the scientists continue to deal with reality!
May 22nd, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Yet again religion would have us illiterate and sitting in caves flinging faeces at each other for perceived sleights against each others’ imaginary friends. The opposite of Progress truly is Religion.
Catholic “ethics” officials should spend some time looking inward in light of the recent decisions to excommunicate women for having life-saving abortions or seeking to become clergy while simultaneously protecting and promoting members of the pederast club. Once they have those issues in check, then perhaps people will be prepared to at least listen politely.
May 22nd, 2010 at 7:48 pm
How dare scientists play god? That’s what clergy are for.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
I would have thought that DESTROYING life was more in the nature of God than creating it!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
If there is a God then we’re correcting all his mistakes. We certainly spend billions yearly.
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Again these hypocritical tossers make it so easy for us to point and laugh.
As the vatican has, throughout the centuries, had major problems with science, let me please point out the following.
Every pope for the last hundred years has been on medicine in order to stay alive. Even more ironically, they all wore specs, not bad for a bunch of fuckwits that oppressed Gallileo.
So basically if you are a pope the benefits of science are ok, but not for the plebs?
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:39 am
So does this mean that Intelligent Design finally came true?
May 23rd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Can only the RCC can play God as the Popo is next in line to Jesus or God’s representative on earth?
Looks like science has produced another gaping hole in religious dogma.
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Religion has always been the most vehement opponent to science. Not to make a tired point, but the RCC confined Galileo (a stauch catholic) to his home for life, and made him publicly renounce his discoveries, even though he had proven that the earth was not the center of the universe, nor even the center of the solar system. But, now they are trying to kiss the asses of those leaving the church in droves. http://www.beliefnet.com/News/.....ecant.aspx
Now, they are recanting again, recommending themselves as the moral guidance for what comes of this discovery. Meanwhile, they deny safe sex to Africa, denounce eugenics, and point to homosexuals as the cause of god’s wrath. That’s a hard public spin to pull off since they have been sheltering pedophiles for decades. Maybe they should consult with Fred Phelps, he’s got it perfected on how to keep amoebas focused on their projected insanity.
NeoWolfe