The arrogance of today’s Roman Catholic Church lecturing us about the preciousness of human life smacks of great hypocrisy. Under the guise of “Christian ethics”, the Church is apparently fretting and fussing over a few human eggs and embryos that are inevitably needed for IVF purposes.

Under the ostentatious title “The celebration of human life”, a recent pastoral letter, whose scope is mainly to stop the practice of IVF treatment outright or failing that, to seriously circumscribe its potential, was issued by the local Curia on the eve of the enactment of IVF legislation by our Parliament. To all those conversant with Church history, the attitude of the modern Church hardly conforms with its horrendous past, when it is estimated that between the 13th and 19th centuries millions of perfectly healthy human lives were murdered at the behest of the same Roman Catholic Church, that is today clutching at straws over a few human eggs. For a period spanning some 600 years, no Pope from the Vatican ever lifted a finger to stop this terrible killing of Europeans and the genocide of Jews and Muslims perpetrated by the Holy Inquisition.

Evidently, one must conclude that, throughout that period, in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church human lives were deemed to be less precious than human eggs.

Vladimir Cini

MARSAXLOKK