The reaction of certain quarters to the Church’s pastors making statements that apply to their flock is often so over-the-top that it’s humorous. Case in point: A Vatican cardinal says that Catholics who kill unborn embryonic children for the sake of stem-cell research are no different than those who kill them for plain-old abortion and thus will be excommunicated. The response? The Vatican “is going back to the days of the Inquisition.”
Dr Stephen Minger, of King’s College London, said: “Having been raised a Catholic I find this stance outrageous. Are they also going to excommunicate IVF doctors, nurses and embryologists who routinely put millions of embryos down the sink [instead of using them for research]? I would argue that it is more ethical to use embryos that are going to be destroyed anyway for the benefit of mankind.”
Minger starts right off with the “raised Catholic therefore I can say any damned fool thing about the Church” fallacy. And he unintentionally steps right on a landmine because, yes indeed, those who engage in IVF may also be subject to the same penalties.
But to assert that we’re going back to the Inquisition is ridiculous. Again, the Church does not have stormtroopers or thought police kicking down the doors of laboratories and hauling off scientists to be burned at the stake. If some scientist wants to kill unborn children for research, then he will do so and unless it’s been made illegal by the state, he will suffer no criminal penalty. But he should have no expectation that the Church will consider him a faithful son of the Church or a good Christian. The Church isn’t going to call evil good just because some scientist somewhere says so.
Utilitarianism
