The conference on stem cell research, organised by the Pontifical Academy for Life was cancelled for economic reasons, not because of protests by certain sections of the pro-life movement to whom “the Holy See gives no credibility whatsoever.”
Fr. Renzo Pegoraro, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy, stated this in an official letter sent to speakers and participants who had registered for the conference. The letter was also signed by Fr. Jacques Suaudeau, an Academy official in charge of organising the conference.
The letter - which Vatican Insider was able to gain access to - explains that “unfortunately” the Pontifical Academy was “forced” to cancel a “high level scientific” conference due to the lack of sponsors and the low number of registrations for the event.
The letter was sent one month ahead of the expected date for the opening of the meeting.
Given these circumstances it was impossible to make a budget balance for the Conference Pegoraro explained: “Only half of the foreseen expenses would have been covered by funds from the Jérôme Lejeune foundation and Monaco’s Bioethics Advisory Committee.”
In relation to the debates roused by some Catholic scholars and representatives of the pro-life movement - including members of the Academy - against the decision to invite some scientists working with embryo stem cells (the use of which is condemned by the Catholic Church), the letter states “that there is no conclusive link between their campaign against the conference and the decision to cancel it.”
The conference would have dealt exclusively with the study of adult stem cells.
The letter sent by the Pontifical Academy recognises an “increasing opposition to the meeting by certain pro-life activists.”
“These people are well known - Fr. Pegoraro went on to say – and the Pontifical Academy and other bodies of the Holy See give them no credibility whatsoever.”
Academics who also work with embryo stem cells had previously been invited to other conferences organised in 2009 and 2006 by the Pontifical Academy for Life.