Posted on 07/22/2006 5:52:10 AM PDT by radar101
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., made a false accusation against the Catholic Church during debate on the Senate floor over federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, according to Catholic News Service.
Arguing President Bush's opposition to the federal funding on moral grounds could seriously set back scientific discovery, Specter said: "Pope Boniface VII (sic) banned the practice of cadaver dissection in the 1200s. This stopped the practice for over 300 years and greatly slowed the accumulation of education regarding human anatomy." Specter not only misidentified the pope, the Catholic news site asserts, but most historical sources indicate no pontiff in history was responsible for the type of ban cited by Specter.
Boniface VII, CNS explained, was an antipope who held the papacy during three separate periods in the late 900s. Boniface VIII served from 1294 to 1303.
The news service said some sources cite the possible cause for confusion in "De Sepulturis," a papal bull issued in 1300.
"Persons cutting up the bodies of the dead, barbarously cooking them in order that the bones being separated from the flesh may be carried for burial into their own countries, are by the very fact excommunicated," says one translation of the document.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says the "only possible explanation of the misunderstanding that the bull forbade dissection is that someone read only the first part of the title and considered that ... one of the methods of preparing bodies for study in anatomy was by boiling them in order to be able to remove the flesh from them easily, (and) that this decree forbade such practices thereafter."
According to German author Heinrich Haesar, in his 1845 textbook "The History of Medicine," dissection of cadavers continued without hindrance during the Middle Ages in European universities, run under the direction of church leaders
Guy de Chauliac, considered the father of modern surgery, was the personal surgeon to three popes in the 14th century and a promoter of dissection in anatomical studies.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says "this fact alone would seem to decide definitely that there was no papal regulation, real or supposed, forbidding the practice of human dissection at this time."
In his Senate speech, Specter said one of the victims of the papal ban was Spaniard Michael Servetus, who "used cadaver dissection to study blood circulation" in the 1500s and was "tried and imprisoned by the Catholic Church."
Servetus, however, encountered trouble with Catholic officials not for his medicine but for his theological questioning of the Trinity, infant baptism and original sin, according to the Servetus International Society, founded to promote his legacy.
Specter lies like a RAT.
Gruesome...
Smells like a rat, beady eyes like a rat... what d'ya know...
He's too lazy and too important (a legend in his own mind) to do his own research. Some lackey aide is going to pay dearly for making Arlen look bad.
Spectre IS a RAT. A RAT who calls himself a Republican for the political advantage he thinks it gives him.
Stuff like this is why Santorum is getting his @$$ handed to him in the polls.
There's a simpler explanation.
He's an idiot.
It's not his fault...
Blame the voters...
This is the same depth of research that led him to formulate the MAGIC bullet theory. What a waste of food this jerk is.
What's with this Specter? Is he on medication?
Having voted for Specter in the past I apologize to everyone across the country who now has to suffer through his daily diatribes.
Chemo head needs to be censured! If we had real leadership, limp Frist would be knocking him around daily.
I actually like to blame the WH for supporting this fool.
The obvious explanation is that Specter is spoon fed this garbage by the pro-abortion lobby. In their milieu these legends become "fact" because they support their world view. Rather than being known as the intellectual elite, these rubes should probably be know as the dissembling elite.
Oops. More people read ans saw the Agony and Escasty than check the Catholic Encyclopedia
I don't take much stock in anything that old BOY says.
Senator Specter denotes his supine ignorance on religious and moral matters. Dr. Michael Servetus died in Geneva victim of the Protestant Reformation by order of the Protestant zealot John Calvin who ruled Geneva with an iron hand. He was condemned to dead no for scientific reasons but for a theological dispute with John Calvin. When he tried to cross to Italy through Geneva, Servetus was arrested and tried for heresy by Protestant authorities.
"The secular officials were unable to establish that Servetus was an immoral disturber of the public peace. Nevertheless, he made damaging theological statements in the course of a written debate with Calvin. The Council of Geneva, after receiving the advice of churches in four other Swiss cities, convicted Servetus of antitrinitarianism and opposition to child baptism. Calvin asked that Servetus be mercifully beheaded. The Council insisted he should be burned at the stake.
Spectators were impressed by the tenacity of Servetus' faith. Perishing in the flames, he is said to have cried out, "O Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me!" Farel, who witnessed the execution, observed that Servetus, defiant to the last, might have been saved had he but called upon "Jesus, the Eternal Son." A few months later Servetus was again executed, this time in effigy, by the Catholic Inquisition in France.
Many Protestants approved the Genevan sentence. Others, especially in Basel, were not so sure that heretics ought to be put to death. In answer to critics, Calvin quickly put together and published, in 1554, a justification, Defensio orthodoxae fidei, contra prodigiosos errores Michaelis Serveti Hispani (Defense of Orthodox Faith against the Prodigious Errors of the Spaniard Michael Servetus)."
Plenty of blame to go around. I'm baffled as to how these career senators keep getting reelected. The senate desperately needs new blood.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.