A reporting by another Schiavo on familiar topics:
The Bucks County audience was partisan, sporting "I Like Mike" and "Murphy '06" campaign badges. And vocal, with boos and cheers prompting the moderator to remind the crowd, "This is not a pep rally."
The spectators' questions yesterday steered the first public debate between the two candidates for Congress away from the official but broad subject of health care to the more divisive issues of embryonic stem-cell research and abortion.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), citing the teachings of his Roman Catholic faith, said he opposes both and believes research should focus on adult stem cells.
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The Pope pointed out the grave injustice of those who falsely claim that the Church is against scientific advancement. "In the face of the frequent and unjust accusations of insensitivity directed against the Church," he said, "I would like to underline the constant support she has given over the course of her two thousand-year history to research aimed at the cure of illnesses and at the good of humanity."
Benedict XVI added, "If there has been - and there still is - resistance, it was and is against those forms of research that involve the planned suppression of human beings who are already alive, though they may not yet have been born." The Pope then highlighted how history "has condemned such science in the past, and will condemn it in the future, not only because it is devoid of the light of God, but also because it is devoid of humanity."
Pope: A Society with Legal Abortion Cannot Fight Crime Effectively
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