The pope’s prayer video included footage of a pregnant woman, an ultrasound of an unborn child, a baby shortly after birth and an elderly woman in hospital.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of March is that bioethical issues be addressed with respect for human life and dignity.

“Biotechnology applications should always be used with respect for human dignity,” the Pope said in a March 8 video appeal.

“It is obvious that science has progressed,” he noted, “and today the field of bioethics presents us with a series of problems to which we must respond, without hiding our heads like an ostrich.”

“Let us pray that we can give a Christian response to bioethical challenges,” Francis said.

The pope’s prayer video included footage of a pregnant woman, an ultrasound of an unborn child, a baby shortly after birth and an elderly woman in hospital.

Scientists in a lab, a medical operation, and a young girl with Down syndrome were also featured in the video.

Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of March reads: “We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to uphold the dignity of all human life through prayer and action.

In the video, Pope Francis said that respect for human dignity means that, “for example, human embryos cannot be treated as disposable material, to be thrown away.”

“This throwaway culture is also applied to them; no, it can’t be. Extending this culture in this way hurts so much.

He also said financial gain should not govern the direction of biomedical research.

“We need to understand the profound changes that are happening with an even deeper and subtler discernment,” the Pope urged.

He added that Catholics should focus on supporting technological advances, rather than holding them back.

“This is about protecting both human dignity and progress,” he said. “That is to say, we cannot pay the price of human dignity for progress, no. The two go together, in harmony.

He closed his call by asking for prayers for Christians “facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to uphold the dignity of all human life through prayer and action.

Pope Francis’ prayer video was promoted by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.

Jesuit Father Frédéric Fornos, international director of the network, declared: “Pope Francis always insists on the need for greater discernment when faced with the challenges of bioethics, on the need to respect human life and in no case to seek its own interests in the logic of the market. , which knows no bounds.

“These are necessary criteria of discernment that help us emerge from a throwaway culture and promote full respect for human life – the full scope of human life, from birth to death. Let us pray that, faced with the new challenges of bioethics, we can always promote the defense of life through prayer and social action.