Catholic News Agency reports (January 23, 2026) that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has terminated funding for research using fetal tissue from aborted children. National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya framed this as advancing science through “breakthrough technologies” that reflect “the values of the American people.” Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center praised the decision as correcting “past abuses,” claiming it links funding to “good, ethical science.” This bureaucratic adjustment masks the fundamental moral catastrophe of treating murdered children as laboratory material.
Moral Cowardice Disguised as Ethical Progress
The article’s celebration of administrative tinkering constitutes a dangerous obfuscation of Catholic moral theology. When Bhattacharya states this decision “reflect[s] the best science of today and the values of the American people,” he implicitly denies the lex aeterna (eternal law) which demands absolute opposition to all cooperation with intrinsic evil. The Church has always taught that no circumstance – not even potential medical benefits – justifies using body parts from intentionally murdered children (Casti Connubii, Pius XI, 1930).
Pacholczyk’s statement that “biomedical research should not be built on the backs of directly-aborted human fetuses” contains a fatal equivocation. By focusing on informed consent as the primary ethical failure, he reduces the crime to a procedural violation rather than recognizing it as complicity in homicide. This aligns with the conciliar sect’s tendency to replace divine law with secular bioethics. The Syllabus of Errors explicitly condemns the notion that “the Church ought to adapt her doctrine to the progress of natural science and philosophy” (Proposition 13, Pius IX).
Theological Omissions Expose Modernist Infiltration
Nowhere does Pacholczyk or the article mention the dogmatic necessity of treating abortion as an unforgivable crime against God the Creator. The silence on Exodus 21:22-25 (“life for life”) and Canon 2350 of the 1917 Code (automatic excommunication for abortionists) reveals the conciliar sect’s abandonment of infallible doctrine for humanitarian platitudes.
The article’s reference to “gold-standard science” substitutes naturalistic utilitarianism for the Thomistic principle that bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu (good requires complete integrity; evil arises from any defect). Research using murdered children’s tissue remains intrinsically evil regardless of purported benefits – a truth articulated in Veritatis Splendor (John Paul II, 1993) but utterly ignored by the ethicist quoted.
Systemic Apostasy Behind Technical Adjustments
Kennedy’s claim that “ethics demand” this policy change rings hollow when his administration continues funding contraception and IVF – practices equally condemned by the perennial Magisterium. The article’s focus on fetal tissue alone exemplifies the piecemeal moralism of post-conciliar ethics, which fractures the seamless garment of Catholic teaching on life issues.
Pacholczyk’s praise for NIH “reining in past abuses” ignores that all administrations since Roe v. Wade bear blood-guilt for federally sanctioned child murder. His assertion that “excellence in science” requires “conscientious attention to ethics” dangerously implies that ethics serve science rather than vice versa – a direct violation of Syllabus Proposition 57 (“Moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction”).
Conclusion: Justice Demands Full Restitution
While terminating funding constitutes a minimal recognition of evil, true Catholic justice requires:
1. Public restitution for all victims of fetal experimentation
2. Criminal prosecution of researchers using aborted tissues
3. Full restoration of Canon 1398’s penalty of excommunication for all abortion collaborators
Until these demands are met, policy tweaks remain scintillae falsae lucis (sparks of false light) in a culture of death sustained by conciliar apostasy. As Pope Leo XIII warned in Libertas Praestantissimum, “When once morality is shaken, the ruin of public life follows soon after” – a prophecy fulfilled in nations legalizing child murder while debating research ethics.
Source:
Department of Health and Human Services bars funding research using fetal tissue (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 23.01.2026