Sometimes those who are assumed to be the most truthful — clergymen and other religious figures — end up being the most disingenuous.
Indeed, it seemed like the Vatican was ready for open discussion and possibly enlightenment when the Pontifical Academy for Life planned the Responsible Stem Cell Research Congress for April 25 to April 28.
The event was to be attended by stem cell researchers from around the world, many of whose work involves the use of human embryonic stem cells, which makes them sinners in the eyes of the Vatican.
But at the end of March, the Vatican canceled the event. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, blamed “organizational, logistical and economic factors” for the cancellation.
After examining the controversy surrounding the conference, however, it seems there was more to the cancellation than the Vatican is letting on.
The Catholic News Agency reported that an anonymous member of the Pontifical Academy for Life called the cancellation an “enormous relief to many members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who felt that the presence on its program of so many speakers, including the keynote speaker, committed to embryonic stem cell research, was a betrayal of the mission of the Academy and a public scandal.”
It turns out that enlightenment was not what the Vatican wanted after all. In fact, the Vatican actually held similar conferences the past two years, but this one was different in that some of the most prominent embryonic stem-cell researchers in the world were to attend, and they were not going to tame their speeches to appease their audience.
After the cancellation, Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco and one of the invited researchers, said, “I think the only interpretation is that we are being censored. It is very disappointing that they are unwilling to hear the truth.”
When the Vatican hosts events like these, it’s not because it wants to be enlightened or give researchers a fair hearing. The Vatican clearly hosted this event to assert its own ideas and to align public perception of stem cell research with its own perception.
And when the Vatican is being disingenuous about its motives for hosting such events, it’s no wonder why scientist Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, said, “I personally am very uncomfortable with a scientific meeting run by a church and one at which only certain types of science and scientists are allowed to attend.”
Although the Catholic Church doesn’t have the best track record with science — might we remember the infamous affair with Galileo, who was deemed a heretic for supporting the theory that the solar system centered around the sun — the Catholic Church is not historically anti-scientific.
In fact, the Catholic Church has given a lot to science, from Jesuit scientists to historical support and contemporary funding of scientific research.
But when it comes to modern biological research, the Vatican must know that it is not the bioethics headquarters of the world. Scientists are always willing and ready for discussion.
Once the Vatican is also ready and willing for open dialogue, it will have the opportunity to learn a lot from the researchers they call sinners and bridge the manufactured gap between religion and science.
Abdul Zalikha is a biology and English junior at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
