According to Catholic doctrine, would a cloned human being have a soul? Recently I heard from my devout religious acquaintance that, according to Christian (Catholic) faith, a cloned individual wouldn't actually be a person. She explained that a human being consists of a body and a soul (it's the philosophy of St Thomas, the conception is derived form Aristotle, I suppose). As the flesh can be created by scientists, only God can grant something (somebody) with a soul. As cloning is — according to her — an artificial way of creating a man, you can't divide the spirit like you can split the cells.

So I’m asking you a question: Is this really part of Catholic ethics? I understand that the Church is against cloning, but this is the first time I’ve heard that the “effect” of it is, so to say, punished. The same could apply to in vitro conception, but I suppose cloning could be taken as a more radical version of this.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that every human body is human because it has a soul imparted by God.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of &quot;the image of God&quot;: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honour since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the &quot;form&quot; of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God — it is not &quot;produced&quot; by the parents — and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

Do read the answer on the status of in-vitro fertilisation, which is the creation of life by artificial (though naturally-based) means. Even though the Church cannot condone the method, it is life. The Holy See has recognised that reproductive cloning produces life, too:

In &quot;reproductive&quot; cloning, one at least gives the newly produced human being, innocent of his/her origin, a chance to develop and be born.

Where God allows human life to be created, it's human life because it has a soul (CCC364). The same would surely apply to a human clone: where God allows such an artificially-created organism to live, it has a soul by the very virtue of that life.
232 Cf. I Cor 6:19-20; 15:44-45.
233 Gaudium et Spes 14 § 1; cf. Dan 3:57-80.
234 Cf. Council of Vienne (1312): DS 902.
235 Cf. Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3896; Paul VI, Credo of the People of God § 8; Lateran Council V (1513): DS 1440.