The California Catholic Conference of Bishops has voted to oppose Prop 14 on the November ballot. The measure would provide an additional $5.5 billion dollars for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine which supports research on discarded human embryos from in vitro fertilization treatments among other projects.
The primary objection to the proposition is based on moral and ethical grounds:
“The Catholic Church ‘appreciates and encourages the progress of the biomedical sciences which open up unprecedented therapeutic prospects” (Pope Benedict XVI, Address of January 31, 2008),’ says the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “At the same time, it affirms that true service to humanity begins with respect for each and every human life…Direct attacks on innocent human life are always gravely wrong. Yet some researchers, ethicists, and policy makers claim that we may directly kill innocent embryonic human beings as if they were mere objects of research—and even that we should make taxpayers complicit in such killing through use of public funds.”
The institute originally focused more on embryonic stem cells at its founding but expanded to other types of stem cells when “progress” from the embryonic cells proved elusive. (the institute’s website heralds only one “cure” in its years of 16 years of operation but focuses on its role in streamlining the research process instead.)
The institute has also been forced to revamp its financial accountability. In 2010, a study by the Little Hoover Commission found that the institute’s board “lacked truly independent voices to balance out those of interested board members” and that “there is no compelling reason to have institutions that receive the funds so heavily represented.”
The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine – which provides grants to researchers throughout the state and nation – received $3 billion in funding from the passage of Prop 71 in 2004 . The conference opposed that proposition as well. That money has mostly been spent and the Institute now wants more from the state or it will not be able to provide any further grants. Stanford University is the major recipient of institute funds.
The above comes from a mid-August release from the California Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The bishops are correct in rejecting this assault on human dignity and their priests should be encouraged to speak up as well. Amazingly, many fear negative reaction by the flock, which shows that even church going Catholics are out of communion regarding the life issues. Some are uninformed, others in rebellion, but all must hear Church teaching in it’s fullness. It is always right to uphold the sanctity of life whether from the pulpit or at the ballot box.
So Kristin writes: “It is always right to uphold the sanctity of life.” Peoples: If you want to be consistent in upholding the sanctity of all human life, a faithful Catholic must also support the Magisterium’s–the Church’s–teaching against the death penalty. The death penalty is part of the dying, rotting “culture of death.” St. John Paul II said so. These are the times, people, when we can’t be wishy-washy and selective of what Catholic teachings we want to support. The Church has no use for wishy-washy, weak-kneed, cafeteria Catholics. Listen to the living Magisterium. Respect life!
Yes. St. John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life). ” The present Encyclical, the fruit of the cooperation of the Episcopate of every country of the world, is therefore meant to be a precise and vigorous reaffirmation of the value of human life and its inviolability, and at the same time a pressing appeal addressed to each and every person, in the name of God: respect, protect, love and serve life, every human life! Only in this direction will you find justice, development, true freedom, peace and happiness!”
False.
A “living magisterium” that contradicts what has always and everywhere been believed and taught from the Apostolic Age must be rejected by the faithful.
The Church has always and everywhere taught — until JP2 — that the legitimate civil authority retains the right to execute convicted criminals for serious capital crimes.
Firstly Mr. Bill to say that the Magisterium has contradicted what the Church has always taught from the time of the Apostles is an attack against the Church itself and is heretical.
Secondly, you treat the death penalty as if it were an “intrinsic good”. It is not. It is not a good that must always be maintained and upheld everywhere when there are other means as we do today to protect society against a capital criminal. Otherwise, it’s a violation of human dignity, and the Church has ALWAYS taught about the dignity of the human person since apostolic times.
The sanctity of life must include healthcare. Nutrition. Housing. Quality education. Fairness in economic opportunity. Respect for the rights of all. Care for the eldery. These are Catholic values mandated by Jesus’ teachings.
I believe a letter to the editor in the “New Oxford Review” by Monica Migliorino Miller, a lady who was critiquing a past article by Jason M. Morgan, is quite correct. She wrote, “I found Jason M. Morgan’s point of view intriguing — if not ultimately bold and provocative — namely, that while the death penalty “remains as valid as ever,” the state that executes human beings as punishment for their heinous crimes is not.
“She goes on to say, ‘On what moral authority can the state outlaw murder and then execute those who commit murder when it says murder may be committed in certain cases?’ ” (cont.)
(Contued) –and no one one pays any legal penalty for it.
She then refers to Morgan again that at the time of Christ, the Roman Empire had not yet been Christianized; it was a pagan world living according to pagan ideals but our regimes are worse because for us to kill innocent unborn babies and treat human beings like trash means our country and so many other countries that have been evangelized, whose cultures were once rooted in Christian respect for the human, are now apostate nations.
In other words those who advocate the killing of innocent children in the womb have no right to execute anyone.