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Catholic World News News Feature

Italian prelate sugggests abstention on assisted-procreation vote January 18, 2005

The president of the Italian bishops' conference has suggested that Catholic voters should abstain from a referendum vote on the country's laws governing assisted procreation.

Speaking at the opening of a meeting of the Italian bishops' conference in Bari, Cardinal Camillo Ruini listed the assisted-procreation issue prominently in a long recitation of public issues the Church must confront.

Italy's top court has given its approval to a referendum that could overturn the country's law governing techniques of assisted reproduction. That law has been controversial since its passage last year, and opponents have amassed 4 million signatures on a petition to amend it. If the country's parliament does not make changes promptly, the voters will face a referendum on the most disputed provisions of the law: the bans on embryonic experimentation, on the creation of multiple embryos for in vitro fertilization, and on the use of outside donors. Cardinal Ruini observed that the Church has "commented several times regarding this law," noting that the existing legislation is not in accord with Church teaching insofar as it allows manipulation of human beings. At the same time, he continued, the law does place some restraints on more flagrant violations of human dignity, and these restraints could be removed in a referendum.

Although "we do not wish for this referendum," the cardinal said, the political focus on issues involving human procreation could be an opportunity for a fresh presentation of Church teachings. Cardinal Ruini noted that the tsunami in Asia has reminded the public that "technology cannot constitute an absolute protection"-- a message that could have implications for the assisted-procreation debate. Speaking more generally about that disaster, he said that the response to the suffering in Asia had been an opportunity for concrete acts of solidarity. On a practical level, he added, public leaders should work to establish adequate warning systems and means of responding to natural disasters. The Italian cardinal expressed serious concerns about the prospects for voting in Iraq, but said that "the strongest reasons for hope today are coming from the Holy Land," where a push toward negotiations could be successful.

Closer to home, Cardinal Ruini indicated his hope that the member-nations of the European Union would ratify the constitutional treaty approved in Rome on October 29. He said that Turkey's bid for entry into the European Union should be carefully considered, with a keen interest in whether that predominantly Muslim country shows "full respect for religious freedom and the rights of religious minority groups."