DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO UNREGULATED SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

VATICAN CITY, FEB 25, 2002 (VIS) - At midday today, John Paul II received representatives of the Italian League for the Fight against Tumors, for the occasion of the 80th anniversary of its foundation.

The Pope affirmed that the concern of this association is that the disease "be accepted without drama and faced with realism, relying with faith on the resources of the human organism and on medical research."

After highlighting the need for experiments that concern the person to be "carried out in full respect of human dignity," he said: "Scientific research will thus become a priceless gift for so many families and for all humanity."

The Holy Father added that suffering and pain can be "an occasion for spiritual growth, opening broader horizons than those to which the limitations and precariousness of our physical being confine us."

Medical professionals "must always bear in mind the centrality of the human being, regardless of race or religion. ... Never must we lose from sight the final aim of the true good of man; never must we surrender to the temptation to unregulated medical and scientific progress, that could become a dangerous form of 'technological control' of life."

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