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Dear Fr. Angelo,

I hope you had a great Advent season in preparation for the celebration of Christmas.

I wanted to send you my best wishes for a Merry Christmas, and also wanted to use this occasion to ask you whether there could be moral “guidelines” regarding the issue of genetic manipulation.

It has been demonstrated that science can intervene in the human genome and modify it, bringing enormous benefits, such as immunization to many diseases (including HIV) on the one hand but implying the risks of eugenics on the other.

My question therefore focuses on the inherent morality of genetic manipulation. Is it permissible for humans to modify their genome? Is it perhaps interpretable as wanting to replace God?

Actually, if we could ignore for a moment the possible disastrous consequences of the spread of such a practice and focus solely on the act itself, I must say that, as a result of the few arguments I have been able to make, I would not see it as inherently immoral. Certainly genome modification seems an unnatural practice, but how does it differ from countless types of equally “artificial” medical treatment, which are nevertheless considered licit? Have we not been given the power from God to have dominion over nature, obviously within the limits of Morality?

This is the conclusion I came to naturally, but I haven’t taken a final stance yet.

I thank you for the security you give to me and many believers. I am sure that many see you as a “safe haven” to turn to when in doubt.

I wish you again a peaceful Holy Christmas and also a happy New Year.

Matthew

Priest’s answer

Dearest,

1. concerning the terms ‘manipulation’ or ‘engineering’ John Paul II remarked about forty years ago, “To tell the truth, the expression “genetic manipulation” remains ambiguous and should constitute an object of true moral discernment, for it covers on the one hand adventure ‑ some endeavors aimed at promoting I know not what kind of superman and, on the other hand, desirable and salutary interventions aimed at the correction of anomalies such as certain hereditary illnesses, not to mention the beneficent applications in the domains of animal and vegetable biology that favor food production.

For these last cases, some are beginning to speak of “genetic surgery”, so as to show more clearly that medicine intervenes not in order to modify nature but to favor its development in its own life, that of the creation, that intended by God” (To the Members of the 35th General Assembly of the World Medical Association, 10/29/1983).

2. Surgery literally means: working with the hand.

Manipulation equally means to intervene with the hand. But very often this term is used to indicate that someone wants to alter something for his own benefit. In this sense, someone would manipulate the news, food products, etc.

Alteration is a modification that distorts the truth of things.

Surgery, on the other hand, intervenes to bring things back to normal, to their rightful being.

Many handicaps and diseases are known to be characterized by genetic abnormalities.

3. Intervening at the genetic level consists in introducing a healthy gene that behaves within the organism in a similar manner to what an infection does when left untreated: it can damage the whole organism.

The healthy gene introduced into the diseased organism, on the other hand, can heal it through an action analogous to that of infection, which in this case is more properly called transfection.

4. Regarding these interventions John Paul II said in that same speech, “A strictly therapeutic intervention whose explicit objective is the healing of various maladies such as those stemming from deficiencies of chromosomes will, in principle, be considered desirable, provided it is directed to the true promotion of the personal well being of man and does not infringe on his integrity or worsen his conditions of life. Such an intervention indeed would fall within the logic of the Christian moral tradition.”

If scientific research will progress to the point where so many children in their mother’s wombs could be healed, so many abortions will be avoided.

5. Beyond this optimism, however, we have to come to terms with the difficulty and delicacy of the intervention, with the very high risks of irreversibly damaging the child or even leading to its death.

6. That is why scientific research should be encouraged and at the same time pressed to remain humble, respectful of every individual person from the very beginning of his existence, keeping in mind what the Holy Scripture says: “To all perfection (even of science, ed.) I see a limit, but your commands are boundless” (Ps. 119:96).

7. Also in that same speech, John Paul II said, “In particular, this kind of intervention must not infringe on the origin of human life, that is, procreation linked to the union, not only biological but also spiritual, of the parents, united by the bond of marriage. It must consequently respect the fundamental dignity of man and the common biological nature which is at the base of liberty, avoiding manipulations that tend to modify genetic inheritance and to create groups of different men at the risk of causing new cases of marginalization in society.”

I gladly reciprocate the wishes for a peaceful and Holy Christmas.

I bless you and will remember you in my prayers,

Father Angelo