British Scientists Blast Vatican on Stem Cell Research Excommunication

Life News ^ | July 7, 2006 | Steven Ertelt

[NYer]

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- British researchers are upset that the Catholic Church has decided it will excommunicate scientists who are involved in embryonic stem cell research. The Vatican says the research, which relies on the destruction of human life to obtain stem cells, is just as bad as abortion.

Last week, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, told an official Vatican magazine that embryonic stem cell research was "the same as abortion."

"Destroying human embryos is equivalent to an abortion. It is the same thing," he said.

"Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos [and to the] politicians that approve the law," the cardinal said in an interview.

However, British scientists are calling this "religious persecution."

Dr. Stephen Minger, leading stem cell expert at Kings College, told the BBC, "Having been raised a Catholic I found this stance really outrageous."

"Are they going to excommunicate IVF doctors, nurses and embryologists who routinely put millions of embryos down the sink every year throughout the world?" he asked.

Professor Allan Templeton, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, told the BBC that the cardinal's comments were "insensitive and unhelpful."

Meanwhile, Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in practical ethics at the University of Oxford, blasted the Catholic church saying the excommunication views amount "to religious persecution of scientists which has no place in modern liberal societies."

An Italian cloning scientist wants to be the first excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

Professor Cesare Galli of the Laboratory of Reproductive Technologies in Cremona, the first scientist to clone a horse, said last week that the position makes the Catholic church like the Talbian in Afghanistan.

"I can bear excommunication. I was raised as a Catholic, I share Catholic values, but I am able to make my own judgment on some issues and I do not need to be told by the church what to do or to think," Galli told the London Telegraph newspaper.

[AliVeritas]

Might I inquire the modern church are you refering to?

[trebb]

Ooooh, and then let me guess, he came to your house and took your bible so you couldn't read it yourself -- oh wait, that's right, you were never allowed to have a bible in the first place, were you? And don't forget to tell about all those times you were forced to worship statues. That one's always a high point of these threads.

Are you well? I just stated what happened. Unless you believe that catholic Priests are infallible as human beings, your comments make no sense. In fact they just plain make no sense.

[Rutles4Ever]

When I was about 12, we got a letter from the Priest of the Catholic Church we attended. It said that they had done some research and knew that Dad was not contributing enough according to his income. It said that he was expected to sr=tart giving more until he was giving the proper amount. We weren't very devout, but at least one of us went each week to sit through the service and drop the envelope into the basket. We got new "offering" envelopes that showed double the amount we had been giving. Dad continued to put the old amount into the new envelopes. We got another letter saying that since we were not willing to support the church properly, we were being excommunicated from that Parish and should not attend any more services there. It really soured me on religion. Today, I understand that religion, being man-made is a perversion of what Christ wanted in the Church. All religions put some burden of obedience to the institution itself, instead of asking us just to be obedient to God's Will. Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden light as a way of telling us that coming to Him was the only requirement - all the onus of the Law was to be no more. Most churches don'y ascribe to that and insist on a lot of rituals, rites and sacraments to be performed as if we were all Israelites under the Old Coveneant.

Hm. Either you saw this information and misinterpreted it, or Mom and Dad lied to you about why your family left the Church. No one - I mean NO ONE - would be excommunicated because of tithing. This is patently absurd.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I'm surprised there are Catholics who would consider killing humans for research purposes.

[trebb]

Hm. Either you saw this information and misinterpreted it, or Mom and Dad lied to you about why your family left the Church. No one - I mean NO ONE - would be excommunicated because of tithing. This is patently absurd.

And no Priests would be alcoholic (ours was), and no Priests would "play doctor" with Nuns (but some have), and no Priests would molest young boys (catching my drift?), etc. Priests are human beings and human beings break and bend the rules.

Perhaps it SHOULDN'T have happend, but it did occur. I wasn't terribly upset because I got to join a bowling league instead of going to Sunday School, but it soured me against religion in general. Fortunately, I discovered in the Gospel of the New Testament, religion is superfluous to being a saved Christian.

[syriacus]

The Priest's secretary sent it [the letter of excommunication] - it was in the mid-60s.

Your father was misled

But a parish priest cannot inflict this penalty [excommunication] nor even declare that it is incurred, i. e. he cannot do so in an official and judicial manner.

From Catholic Encyclopedia

[trebb]

see my post 105 - rules or no rules, things happen

[trebb]

see my post 105 - rules or no rules, things happen

[right-wingin_It]

Are they going to excommunicate IVF doctors, nurses and embryologists who routinely put millions of embryos down the sink every year throughout the world?" he asked.

YES! Where the heck has this guy been over the last 20 years??

[right-wingin_It]

Sorry utahagen..I missed your post, and repeated it.

[right-wingin_It]

...Meanwhile, Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in practical ethics at the University of Oxford, blasted the Catholic church saying the excommunication views amount "to religious persecution of scientists which has no place in modern liberal societies."...

Um...excuse me, but I believe only the Catholic scientists can be excommunicated from their own church! BTW, isn't religious persecution when outsiders persecute you for FOLLOWING YOUR OWN RELIGION???

How irrational. This dude is certainly qulified to be "MAD" scientist. A fine example of the liberal diseased mind, here.

[right-wingin_It]

I am a research scientist and have declined several jobs at top US Pharmaceutical companies with their hands in abortion...either in their research, or in their donations to the clinics.

Perhaps its time to start a support group for my catholic scientist collegues going through the same situation...we still got families to support and loans to pay back, but we shouldn't have to take part in this work to do it...Perhaps it can be done though the the KofC or something?? That would be awsome.

[syriacus]

rules or no rules, things happen

I'm sorry that someone lied to your family when they pretended that a priest can excommunicate his parishioners.

[The Cuban]

Where did you get this notion that Jesus was talking about himself in the third person, in the middle of a passage in which he is talking about Peter? Is that how protestants rationalize their heresy, through misinterpretation??

[trebb]

I'm sorry that someone lied to your family when they pretended that a priest can excommunicate his parishioners.

It was the priest that did the deed, not "somebody".

I have a lot of folks expressing that I should repent and ask forgiveness for spouting such "lies" and many more saying it never happened, couldn't happen, etc., and they cite different rules and such that "prove" our priest never told us to stop coming back because we weren't paying enough (The letter used the word "excommunication" and indicated it was from the Parish, rather than from Catholicism). It makes me wonder if their faith is more firmly grounded in the religion or in the Savior, who requires no religion from us - He called the most religious of them [pharisees] hypocrites because they professed to be true to the Law and elevated themselves above others spiritually, and He knew that it was impossible for mere men to do so.

At any rate, I don't believe that anything that happens in God's world doesn't have an up side and the up side for me is that, even though it took decades, I found a path to Christ in a non-denominational church and I praise Him for leading me where I needed to go to become His for Eternity.

God Bless

[Irishguy]

thanks G, i was about to ask this exact question!

is a stem cell not a stem cell? i mean why is the scientific community so keen on baby stem cells? i am assuming they have some reason (well at least i hope they do)

also, i dont understand why a lot of people are getting their knickers in a twist over excommunication. i dont know any religion that has an 'a la carte' approach. if you want to be catholic, be one, if you dont, dont...make your choices.

i have a divorce behind me, i dont go to church...why? because the church says i should not receive communion. i think it would be extremely cynical of me to goto church. i dont like that rule, i wish they would change it, but they have not and i dont expect they will, so i dont go. i broke a rule, i dont go..what is the problem?

i dont see this discussion any different, how could you goto church when you know the churches position on abortion, and then 24 hours later goto work and dissect an aborted baby....i just dont understand that mentality at all. how can you then get upset about being excommunicated. as i said they made their choices...

[Theo]

Where did you get this notion that Jesus was talking about himself in the third person, in the middle of a passage in which he is talking about Peter?

From experts in biblical literature: http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=2701

And you rationalize your heresy by deferring to men in fancy outfits.

How would you challenge the argument laid out in the webpage above? Besides attacking me, or attacking the character of the man laying out the argument, or saying that the "Magesterium" says so and therefore it must be true?

[Theo]

This theologian says it more explicitly:

"The Greek text does not teach that Peter is the rock. The rock is either Peter's confession of Christ, or Christ Himself, in Peter's answer to Jesus' earlier question 'Who do men say that I the Son of man am?'" ( http://www.gpcredding.org/petra.html )

Is that helpful? I pray the truth frees you from your heresy.

[syriacus]

I'm sorry that someone the priest lied to your family when they he pretended that a priest can excommunicate his parishioners.

When I said "someone" I was thinking "someone" like the secretary might have done the deed.

[The Cuban]

Theology experts? Who certified them to teach? Definately not the church. I place my trust in 2000 years of consistent interpretation, expoused by an unbroken line of "theology experts" called bishops.