Posted on 07/08/2006 6:52:03 AM PDT by 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.
This canard is simply, utterly false. An annulment in no way illegitimizes the children born in the annulled marriage. Kennedy's ex repeated this lie countless times when she was promoting her book about her annulment.
Actually the Church doesn't say you can't receive Holy Communion if you're divorced. You can (provided you're in a state of grace of course). It's only forbidden if you're divorced and REMARRIED.
Why do people want to be Catholic and yet be against what the Catholic Church believes and teaches? These people want to be Catholic but want to be able to pick and choose what parts of the doctrines, dogma and teachings the Catholic Church puts out there. The Catholic Church, in more than one place (including its Catechism) says this is not how it is supposed to work if you are a Catholic.
There is more than one denomination of Christians out there. So many people are into 'shopping' for a religion that fits them, not one they have to fit into. There are many that are more than happy to adjust to the individual. Find one of them if that's your mindset (it's not mine, but I am assuming it's theirs by their own complaint).
I was born and raised Catholic, and at 25 I realized there were so many things I didn't believe in what the church was teaching that not only was I technically a 'bad' Catholic, I was no longer a Catholic. I studied the Bible and different denominations for two years and am now in a conservative Lutheran denomination. I wasn't looking for one that fit my likes and dislikes, I found a denomination that was biblically-based, and consistently applied the bible as issues were presented.
If it ever strays from this, I will find it not hard at all to dismiss myself from it and find another denomination where God's Word is the highest authority and applied properly.
Okay. You doubt the Tradition of the Catholic Church (note capital T). So show me the Scripture passages indicating the Canon of the Bible and the part that dictates Sola Scriptura as solely necessary for salvation?
You have a lot of looking to do.
The Word is also the Logos or the Son. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and is the expression of the Love between them. To use the word "WORD" in its strict sense for Scripture alone denigrates the Trinity. God sent the Word to give Witness to Him. The concept of Trinity was hazy until Jesus described what it was. If we obey the Son, we obey God since God is Three Divine Persons of one Nature. How you get Sola Scriptura out of that is kind of a stretch.
I am waiting for the verse defining the Canon. I know you can't produce it because it doesn't exist. The followers of Jesus Christ who heard Him speak and who trained schools of believers carried the Tradition which in time was recorded. Read the early Church Fathers to see how this Tradition along with Scripture and the Magisterium nipped countless errors that preserved your Faith as well (like the Heresy of Arianism which was put to rest after a long fight).
You rely on Tradition and even the Reformation accepted huge swatches of it (as in Luther who had great reverence for the Mother of God and believed in her Immaculate Conception). If you wish to believe the Bible fell from heaven and was printed by Guttenberg, that presents problems I can't address.
Frank
So why are the Gospels of Mary, Judas and Thomas omitted? They speak of Christ and His Word? Of course there is a canon. Otherwise what governs what is in your Bible? Why does my Bible have Maccabees and yours has it in a back section called an Apocrypha? It was stripped out during the Reformation and added back later.
The apostles especially Peter the founder of the church
Peter founded NO CHURCH. Christ founded a Church and left Peter as the caretaker on earth (the "Prime Minister" which you deny). And, of course Christ was of the House of David. God is God. He could have been of the House of Asher if He chose.
I believe exactly what was Written.... "A virgin shall conceive.... the virgin was indeed Mary and her linage is given us that she came from the House of Judah - Key to David, the King line, and the tribe of Levi, that tribe designated as the priest line, as Christ was to be the King and the High Priest for one and all time.
And I believe this too! Roman Catholics believe there is only ONE priest and He is Jesus Christ. The priests in our Church get their power solely by serving "in persona Christi" (on Christ's behalf). Without Him, they have no power and no authority.
I can find NO scripture that it is or was Mary that gave or gives the Heavenly Father His authority, after all He created her very soul. Obviously she demonstrated that she was worthy of being selected of being the one who would be chosen for that physical path for Christ to (Hebrews 2:14) partake of flesh and blood, just like the rest of us.
?????
Mary physical sexual status and other births, after the birth of Christ, has no reflection whatsoever upon the Heavenly Father or of His only begotten Son, our Saviour.
Mary had no other children. See Catholic Answers for an exegesis on this. The word "brothers and sisters" was used to show kinship and did not imply a direct relationship to Christ through His mother. This term could have implied cousins or kin. She bore only one child.
By the way where is Mary buried?????
The Eastern Tradition, which Catholics follow, is that she "fell asleep" or "died" (her dormition) in Ephesus. However, I'll ask you one. There are billions of pieces of the "True Cross" floating around and a legion of relics of every saint under the sun. Find one relic of Mary Immaculate on this earth or anyone who claims to have one...Then, admit she was assumed into heaven as Tradition teaches.
As John said, not every act or word Christ did was recorded. To do this would be impossible. So, word of mouth kept the Gospel alive until it was recorded. Is that not the definition of Tradition?
Who penned the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? John may have had input but these appeared some time after the Evangelists. It is more likely that their "schools" listened to the individuals and penned the Gospels. Mark was not one of the twelve. He obtained his accounts himself or from others. Luke was also not an original Apostle. It is certain his Gospel largely relied on commentaries from Peter and others. So what is your point? This is a specious argument. The point is that there were many Gospels and fragments extant and only 4 made it into Holy Scripure. The Gnostic texts were not included.
Writing about God and penning the inspired WORD of God are worlds apart. Seems that the Heavenly Father saw fit which Books were selected as His inspired WORD.
Agreed. God did this through the Church that His Son had instituted on earth and which had Peter as the Prime Minister.
I think somebody is going to have to explain how they possibly could think that flesh man could serve on Christ's behalf. You are forgetting about the miracle that took place at the death of that veil being rent from the TOP to the bottom that the man priest did his work as method to have interaction with the Heavenly Father. Christ became each and every individual who would access to the Heavenly Father and NO longer are we required to go to a man in the flesh to communicate with the Heavenly Father, only through Christ.
Your attack on the Catholic priesthood instituted by Christ is classic. Christ commanded His Apostles at the Last Supper to "do this in commemoration of me." By this he meant to enter into His ongoing and eternal sacrifice through the Mass and the Eucharist by transubstantiating bread and wine into His Body and Blood. He didn't say, "read this account in your Bibles in the Gospel of John which will be written soon." If you refuse to listen, you have lost a great treasure that God left us in perpetuity.
No other person living or dead is given that authority and none of the New Testament authors established that system of Church it is of man's traditions.
Says you. By whose Authority do you interpret Scripture in this way? I'll rest my interpretation on 2000 years of Bible study beginning within years of Christ's death and Resurrection via the Church Fathers. You are the one big on personal interpretation. Believe as you wish but that doesn't make it so.
It is the key church doctrine NOT of the Holy Word instruction that Mary never had sex and never bore other children. WHY is there this obsession upon Mary never having sex, what does it matter, it has nothing to do with salvation?
She was the new Eve whom God reserved as the vessel to bear His Son. Look at how many instructions were given concerning the Ark which held the tablets given to Moses. How are those more important thant the vessel which bore God the Son, the Man-God, the Second Person of the Trinity?
I have read that Mary was taken to England and there is such a 'tradition' passed down from generation to generation to this day. I find it a bit interesting if it be the case considering it was King James that made sure the commoner had access to an English Bible.
Too much Da Vinci Code for you! England managed to corner a lot of the key items of Christianity for some reason... ;-o) Post hoc ergo propter hoc argument regarding King James' Bible. What does this have to do with the price of onions pray tell?
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