[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Excommunication Is Sought for Stem Cell Researchers

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

According to the article below, "individual excommunication [is] the most 
serious punishment meted out by the church."  Whatever happened to burning 
at the stake?  Well, they've obviously lost their touch.  I would think 
that excommuncation (being kicked out of their club) would be a great 
benefit.  Who would want to be associated with backward, uninformed people 
who wear really weird clothes and have bizarre ideas?  What good is that? 
It also seems to me that The Church takes a lot more money from their 
parishioners than they give back to them.  Certainly this is true of my 
Catholic mother.  Maybe I can get her to do some stem cell research. 
--Mike

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/01/world/europe/01vatican.html

N.Y. Times
July 1, 2006

Excommunication Is Sought for Stem Cell Researchers

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

ROME, June 30 -- Scientists who engage in stem cell research using human 
embryos should be subject to excommunication from the Roman Catholic 
Church, according to a senior Vatican official.

Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, who heads the group that proposes 
family-related policy for the church, said in an interview with the 
Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana published Thursday that stem cell 
researchers should be punished in the same way as women who have abortions 
and doctors who perform them.

"Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion," said the cardinal. 
"Excommunication is valid for the women, the doctors and researchers who 
destroy embryos."

It was unclear if the pope supported the position, and the Vatican did not 
return calls for comment. But such blunt remarks from a powerful cardinal 
just a week before the church convenes a meeting to discuss the topic 
could foreshadow a hardening of Vatican policy on the issue, experts said.

On Saturday, Cardinal Trujillo will open the church's fifth World Meeting 
of Families in Valencia, Spain, and Pope Benedict XVI will attend on July 
9, the closing day. As head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, it 
will be up to Cardinal Trujillo to propose new church policies, though 
adopting any such measure could require a long and complicated process.

The church has long opposed embryonic stem cell research, and has 
campaigned against any medical procedure or research technique that harms 
human embryos or fetuses.

But the threat of individual excommunication -- the most serious 
punishment meted out by the church -- was previously directed at women and 
medical personnel who participated in abortions. Cardinal Trujillo's stand 
would broaden the use of that sanction to biomedical researchers who use 
embryos.

"The cardinal's view is that the penalty of excommunication should be 
extended to stem cell research," said the Rev. Brian Johnstone, a moral 
theologian at the Alphonsian Academy here. "The provisions of canon law 
about what leads to excommunication are very precise."

But Father Johnstone cautioned that it was unlikely that the church would 
formally adopt a final position next week. "Clarification of such a 
delicate point of this importance is unlikely to be made at such a large 
gathering," he said.

Even some Catholics who are opposed to the use of embryos in research felt 
that excommunication was too strong a sanction. "If we're defending the 
principle that human life should not be touched, it should not be done in 
a punitive, castigatory or burn-in-hell sort of way," said Paola Binetti, 
a leading Catholic politician here.

The specification of the punishment for embryonic stem cell research was 
partly needed so the church could catch up with advances in science.

When the 1990 Evangelium Vitae came out reaffirming that abortion would 
lead to automatic excommunication, "Embryonic stem cell research was not a 
front-page issue," Ms. Binetti said.

While doctors and scientists claim that embryonic stem cell research holds 
the promise to cure many intractable diseases, the church opposes the 
practice because human embryos are used to harvest cells for the work. 
Some of these embryos are left over after in vitro fertilization 
procedures, but scientists can also create embryos themselves.

The church regards such early-stage embryos as a human life, not to be 
used or destroyed. It maintains that there are other ways to obtain stem 
cells for research purposes -- from umbilical cord blood after a birth, 
for example -- though it acknowledges that they are significantly more 
cumbersome.

According to current church law, excommunication for abortion is "latae 
senentiae," meaning that it is automatic and does not require an action or 
proclamation by a church official. This type of excommunication is 
reserved for acts deemed so serious that no verdict or judgment is 
required. Even so, many women who have had abortions continue to practice 
Catholicism, and many parishes take pains to embrace and reintegrate them 
into church life.

Other acts that result in automatic excommunication include violence 
against the pope and consecrating a bishop without authorization. Now, 
experts said, Cardinal Trujillo's remarks raise the possibility that being 
involved in stem cell research might be added to the category.


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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