Last week end for Téléthon marathon in France: thirty hours of solidarity on the television networks France 2 and France 3. But on the research projects funded through donations, French bishops last year undertook a battle in defense of human embryos and against its use for research purposes. The French Bishops Conference issued on its website the address of its president Cardinal Andrè Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris, delivered during the latest plenary assembly. “Let us first of all consider the young patients and their relatives, their hopes of recovery and their courage. We admire the generosity which animates all those who take part in Téléthon and we have no intention of discrediting this generosity which bears many fruits.” “Generosity however doesn’t legitimize everything. It is our wish that every person seriously reflect upon” the “serious issues which Téléthon projects refer to, such as the use of embryo stem cells and the media’s exploiting of the sick”. The French bishop’s position on the Téléthon marathon is to be viewed within the broader commitment of the French bishops on the respect for human life and more precisely the law on bioethics enacted in July 1994, reviewed a first time in 2004 and object of further revision in 2009. On this topic, the archdiocese of Paris issued an informative report explaining why the Church intends to take a stand on this law: “if on the one part it’s necessary to encourage research, on the other its possible extremes need to be monitored. The Catholic Church urges for research to be done always in full respect of human life and to the service of man and not the opposite”.
