…will the US call in the Papal Nuncio for a chat, demanding that the Pope withdraw his insulting remarks?

The remarks being the Pope’s remarks to a meeting sponsored Pontifical Academy for Life and by the International Federation of Catholic Doctors’ Associations, which is meeting to consider the theme: "Stem cells, what future for therapy?"

The Holy Father encouraged those working in Catholic-inspired scientific institutions to increase research in this field and "to establish closer contact among themselves and with others who seek, using appropriate methods, to relieve human suffering.

"In the face of the frequent and unjust accusations of insensitivity directed against the Church," he added, "I would like to underline the constant support she has given over the course of her two thousand-year history to research aimed at the cure of illnesses and at the good of humanity. If there has been – and there still is – resistance, it was and is against those forms of research that involve the planned suppression of human beings who are already alive, though they may not yet have been born."

The Pope then highlighted how history "has condemned such science in the past, and will condemn it in the future, not only because it is devoid of the light of God, but also because it is devoid of humanity."

"In the face of the direct suppression of human beings," he continued, "there can be no compromise or prevarication; it is inconceivable for a society to fight crime effectively when it itself legalizes crime in the field of nascent life."