Vatican official urges Catholics to rediscover motherhood

The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Ignacio
Carrasco de Paula, recently told CNA that the original definition of
motherhood as a gift from God must be rediscovered.
 
Archbishop
Carrasco said, “The reaction to the news of becoming a mother should
return to being what it has always been, a reaction of joy” that leads
us to say “congratulations.” He added that the response to a mother
should not be “'I'm so sorry,' like we say to people who get sick.”
 
He
recalled that it was Blessed John Paul II who was inspired 25 years ago
to create the Pontifical Academy, which is dedicated to the defense of
human life.  

“He was the first to realize that the Church needed an
academy devoted to the issues of life such as biomedicine or
biotechnology,” the archbishop added.
 
Archbishop Carrasco said
the dicastery’s focus this year has been on three areas: post-abortion
trauma, umbilical cord banks and treatments for infertility.

Regarding
post-abortion trauma, he said it is necessary that the condition be
“defined as well as whether or not there is a cure.”
 
He also
discussed the new ethical problems surrounding umbilical cord banks “of
an economic nature,” because “there is a new market in which there is
supply and demand.”  This factor is where ethical problems come into
play, the archbishop said.
 
Likewise, he explained that the in
vitro fertilization treatments imply “very serious moral problems
because a child is created in the laboratory and can easily become an
object of manipulation.”  The process is further complicated by the
selection and destruction of multiple embryos, he added.
 
Archbishop
Carrasco also noted that the defense of human life should also include
helping the elderly.  

“In this last great trial that they must overcome,
they need particular help, and by help I mean not only the technically,
but also personal and emotional help and respect for their dignity.”
 
We must recall “they are not people who have become useless to society and have nothing left to say,” the archbishop added.

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