His remarks were made during a Monday audience with the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation.
Pope Leo XIV defended the dignity of human life at every stage and warned about the risks of a medicine subordinated to technical or utilitarian criteria at the Vatican on Monday.
“No doctor should ever allow himself, on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide on the life of an embryo or of an elderly person,” the pope said June 22 during an audience with members of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation.
“Medicine must never become a servant of programmed death!” he emphasized.
The foundation began its work in France in 1995, following the death of geneticist Jérôme Lejeune, considered the father of modern genetics for discovering in 1958 the genetic cause of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome).
According to its website, the organization allocates between four and five million euros (approximately $4.5-5.7 million) annually to research, maintains a biobank in Paris with more than 20,000 samples, and operates medical centers in Paris and Nantes, France, in Madrid, Spain, and in Córdoba, Argentina).
“I wish to express my encouragement for your commitment in favor of life and human dignity,” Leo XIV told foundation members.
