Recent Catholic News

A pro-life petition asking President Bush to begin taking actions that would restore full legal protection for unborn babies, ends signup on July 31.  http://www.conservativepetitions.com/petition.html?name=first_step_initiativ

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2001 (LSN.ca) – The lobbying over embryonic stem cell research has stooped to manipulation involving a video demonstrating the results of a stem cell study on paralyzed rats that regain some function in their legs. The video is being promoted by advocates of embryonic stem cell research funding as key evidence to persuade President Bush to decide pro-funding. However, the study in the video does not involve the type of stem cells in question in the funding debate – a critical fact being withheld in media coverage. The study, led by Drs. John Gearhart and Douglas Kerr […]

ST THOMAS, ON, July 26, 2001 (LSN.ca) – The seven children forcibly removed from their home early this month because their parents refused to promise Children’s Aid workers that they would never spank them with a switch were allowed to return home today. A judge heard arguments from the lawyers of the parents and the Children’s Aid Society and agreed to a compromise. The agreement imposes eight conditions on the family including one that the parents will temporarily not spank their children. The court will meet again to continue the proceedings on Sept. 6th. Before and during the proceedings, in […]

PARIS, July 25, 2001 (LSN.ca) – French Health Minister, Bernard Kouchner, has admitted he committed euthanasia when he worked as a doctor. In an interview with the Dutch weekly magazine Vrij Nederland, Mr Kouchner said that during the wars in Lebanon and Vietnam he “helped” people die with morphine injections when he believed they were suffering too much. “When people were suffering too much pain and I knew in advance they would die, I would help them,” he said. According to a BBC report, Kouchner – UN administrator for Kosovo in the late 1990s – does not currently plan to […]

LONDON, July 25, 2001 (LSN.ca) – In a new study showing the benefit of ethically derived adult stem cells, British scientists have, for the first time, shown that stem cells from an adult’s bone marrow are capable of turning into mature kidney cells. A team led by Professor Nicholas Wright of the UK’s Imperial Cancer Research Fund, demonstrated that theories suggesting that stem cells in the bone marrow only develop into specialized blood cells are incorrect. The study, conducted on mice, shows that bone marrow stem cells clearly have potential for turning into the tissues of other organs. Dr. Wright, […]

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Yesterday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved, on a party-line 18-11 vote, a bill to prohibit the creation of human embryos by cloning. The bill (H.R. 2505) sponsored by Rep. Dave Weldon (D-Fl.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.) is expected to come up for a vote by the full House as early as next week. Punishment for cloning would include fines and up to 10 years in prison. The National Right to Life Committee in the US has warned that a separate bill, which would allow creation of new human beings via cloning but […]

VATICAN, July 25, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Several media outlets were caught attempting to twist the pope's message on embryonic stem cell research. The Vatican today issued a clarification of his public statement to President George Bush in order to set the record straight. The Catholic Church opposes all research procedures that exploit living human embryos and fetuses, said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The most reckless spin of the pope's comments came from the Washington Post, which declared misleadingly, “The pope's denunciation of stem cell research could have been much broader. By making his comments specific to stem cells that are […]

MILWAUKEE, WI, July 25, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Daniel Maguire, a tenured professor at the Jesuit Catholic Marquette University in Milwaukee, who calls himself a ‘Catholic’ theologian has come out with a paper claiming falsely that the Catholic Church endorses embryonic stem cell research. Maguire is one of the few professors at Catholic universities complaining openly about a Vatican plan to have local bishops give Catholic theologians a letter of standing known as a mandatum. Supporters of the mandatum suggest that the requirement for such procedures came from renegades such as Maguire who masquerade their anti-Catholic tirades under the flag of […]

A couple in Japan has been arrested for playing on the psychological trauma of post-abortive women. Japanese police report that the couple charged Japanese women large fees to be exorcised from the “spirits of their aborted babies.”http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20010725p2a00m0fp009001c.html   Excellent commentaries on Stem Cells:   * Gene Edward Veith: A new modest proposal http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/07-28-01/national_2.asp  * Nat Hentoff: The Stem Cell Wars http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff.html  * Cal Thomas: Ronald Reagan’s valuable view of life http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas.html

The Catholic News Service reports that the National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life has declared Aug. 4-5 a mobilization weekend in the black community against embryonic stem-cell research. “Black Catholics cannot and will not sit back and allow this attack on human life to go unchallenged,” said Franciscan Father Jim Goode, president of the New York-based apostolate founded in 1997. The group is asking parishes and institutions in the black community throughout the country to send letters and make phone calls to President Bush and to their representatives in Congress asking them not to fund any research that would involve […]