Interview: Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk on bioethics

Walter Camier: Father, could you explain what embryonic stem-cell research is, and why it is against Catholic doctrine?

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk: The central difficulty at the heart of embryonic stem-cell research is that a five-day-old human being must be destroyed to obtain embryonic stem cells. The proposal to destroy a young member of the human species is always immoral. The Catholic Church has been one of the most articulate voices around this controversy over the past years.

What has since developed is the recognition that you can treat human patients with grave diseases and repair many damaged organs by using adult stem cells and umbilical-cord stem cells without crossing any moral lines.

Yet the media stresses embryonic stem-cell research, which requires destroying embryos, even though embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat anybody or cure any disease in human patients. Embryonic stem-cell research remains a speculative proposal.