A cloned body is not without a soul

Good morning, Father Angelo,

About cloning a human being, or even an animal one, I cannot understand how possibly the cloned body may remain alive even if with no soul.

Another doubt of mine is: since God works for the good of nature by giving a soul even in the case of rape, I wonder if that happens in the case of assisted fecundation too and, therefore, that it is a new birth of a person with a soul.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Emanuele

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The Priest’s answer

Dear Emanuele,

1. there cannot be a living body without a soul.

Because the soul is what gives life to a body.

A body without a soul is dead, it is a corpse.

2. In the case of cloning, although two individuals have the same DNA, they are not one but two.

Precisely this individuality makes one distinct from the other and each has its own soul, and its own body, even if identical to the cloned one.

3. The moment a human individual is cloned, the infusion of the rational soul by God occurs.

Perfectly identical to the body which it was cloned from, nevertheless a new human subject is distinct from the previous one. He or she is a new person.

4. About the second question, you are right: just as God works in the process of nature by infusing a soul even in the case of rape, the same occurs in the case of assisted fecundation too.

Simply, the fecundated ovum is no longer an ovum, but it is a new human subject.

In fact, the moment of conception inaugurates a vital process which is perfectly distinct from the mother’s one. Surely, it is a unique vital process, that one belonging to a new human subject which never existed before and will never exist once again.

5. This is also why the so-called assisted fecundation is particularly serious, and it would be better to call it by its real name, that is artificial fecundation.

In fact, it manifests a despotic dominion over the new human being, who is not welcomed as a gift as happens in natural fecundation, but it is commissioned and produced by an outsider of the marriage.

A despotic dominion that is further aggravated in the case of heterologous fertilization when children are wanted according to one’s own tastes and deprived of paternity and paternal kinship.

It is particularly serious also because it involves a higher rate of abortions both because not only one ovum is fecundated, but several are exposed to selection and cryopreserved, and because of the greater difficulty of implantation in the mother’s womb.

One is evidently responsible for this higher rate of abortions, which one is certain and aware of.

6. Not to mention the possible defects which the artificially inseminated subject is exposed to, as the laws of nature are implacable and, sooner or later, their violation causes devastating effects.

The Holy Scripture says: “I have seen the limits of all perfection, but your command is without bounds.” (Psalms 119:96).

7. Paraphrasing another expression in the Holy Scripture, one could say: “Well, let us remain in the hands of the Lord, because His mercy is great, but do not let me fall into the hands of men!”.

The biblical text says: “Let us fall by the hand of God, for he is most merciful; but let me not fall by the hand of man.” (2Sam 24:14).

I bless you 

Father Angelo

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