The instruction added that "in order to come to the aid of the many infertile couples who want to have children, adoption should be encouraged, promoted and facilitated by appropriate legislation so that the many children who lack parents may receive a home that will contribute to their human development. In addition, research and investment directed at the prevention of sterility deserve encouragement."
And in Donum vitae, a 1987 instruction on respect for human life in its origin, the congregation affirmed that "although the manner in which human conception is achieved with IVF and [embryo transfer] cannot be approved, every child which comes into the world must in any case be accepted as a living gift of the divine Goodness and must be brought up with love."
Barrett and her husband have seven children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti.
Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court Sept. 26.
Her Senate confirmation hearing and a vote on her nomination are expected to take place at the end of October, shortly before the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Barrett previously came to national attention during her 2017 Senate confirmation hearings after she was nominated by the president for the U.S. Court of Appeals. During that process, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) stated that "the dogma lives loudly" within Barrett, and "that's a concern."
During those hearings Barrett insisted that as a judge, she would honor binding precedents, and would not let her religious beliefs inappropriately alter her judicial decisions.
Asked by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) about how she would rule on a case involving same-sex marriage, Barrett stated: "From beginning to end, in every case, my obligation as a judge would be to apply the rule of law, and the case that you mentioned would be applying Obergefell, and I would have no problem adhering to it."
Criticism of Barrett is part of a "virus" of anti-Catholic "bigotry," Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote last week at First Things.
"It seems to infect a number of Democratic senators, including Sen. Kamala Harris, Feinstein's California colleague and vice presidential nominee, who saw looming peril in that dangerous national conspiracy otherwise known as the Knights of Columbus."
The emeritus Archbishop of Philadelphia warned that public attacks on the Supreme Court nominee's faith constitute a wider threat to religious liberty.
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Archbishop Chaput said that "those who value our First Amendment right to religious freedom should realize that tests about belief are attacks on religious liberty."
In her letter, Duckworth had written that "while we are each, of course, entitled to our own beliefs about women's access to constitutionally-protected healthcare choices," St. Joseph County Right to Life's views are "radical".
The archbishop stated that "positioning dissenting Catholics as 'mainstream Americans' and believing Catholics as 'extremists'" is now a "common and thoroughly dishonest culture war technique," and "a particular affront to the free exercise of religion."