Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, condemned once again the human cloning and the "destruction of human embryos", as His Holiness put it, while meeting for discussions with South Korea’s recently appointed ambassador for Vatican.

The comments made by the 265th and reigning Pope during his meeting with Ambassador Ji- Young Francesco Kim were posted on the Vatican's official website.

First of all, the pontiff congratulated South Korea achievements and "advances in biotechnology with the potential to treat and cure illnesses so as to improve the quality of life in your homeland and abroad."  Nevertheless, His Holiness underlined the fact that a human being should not be manipulated or treated as an instrument for experiments “under no circumstances”.

"The destruction of human embryo cells, whether to acquire stem cells or for any other purpose contradicts, the purported intent of researchers, legislators and public health officials to promote human welfare," Pope Benedict said.

This official discussion between Pope Benedict VI and Ambassador Kim follows a related scandal that happened in the Asian country a year ago. The scandal brought a lot of disgrace over South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk who made human stem cell cloning experiments that were discovered to be based on cooked data.

This incident determined Seoul to take action and tighten controls on research. A few days ago the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced that 96 public and private laboratories had set up verification systems for their research projects. When the above mentioned scandal occurred just 15 labs had such verification systems.

Ministry officials also plan to distribute a guidebook containing research ethics to about 500 schools and public institutions in a few weeks.