Pope denounces lack of ethics in medicine

Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by faithful during his visit to Rome's Polyclinic Agostino Gemelli Hospital, Thursday, May 3, 2012. AP PHOTO/GREGORIO BORGIA

ROME—Pope Benedict XVI condemned Thursday the “ethical impoverishment” of modern medicine, saying God should not be “excluded” from science in a speech to medical students at Rome’s Catholic university.

“An ethical impoverishment is gaining ground,” the pope told students.

“What used to be the fertile European root of culture and progress appears to have been forgotten,” he said, in reference to religion.

He also said doctors should defend “life in all its phases” – a reference to the Church’s belief that all lives are sacred from conception to natural death, rejecting the possibility of abortion and euthanasia.

The pope was speaking during a visit to the Gemelli university hospital, which is strongly associated with his predecessor John Paul II who had to be treated there many times during his protracted illness.

The top floor of the hospital is reserved for popes.