Editorial

The Wisconsin Legislature has been debating Governor Jim Doyle's proposal to spend millions of dollars in taxpayers' money to expand stem cell research in our state.

The Catholic Church - as some may believe - is not opposed to all stem cell research. However, the church is opposed to unethical stem cell research that destroys human embryos in the process.

Budget motion. The Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance is considering a budget motion to prevent the use of tax dollars to fund research that destroys human embryos. John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC), has urged the committee to support this budget motion.

Huebscher made an interesting comment to the committee. He said the WCC's support for an amendment protecting embryos from destruction is grounded in the same ethic as its support for a higher minimum wage and adequate funding for programs like Medicaid and Badgercare.

This is an ethic, he said, "that affirms the inviolable dignity of every human being." He added, "No person is a means to someone else's end even when those ends are laudable."

Does end justify means? As I have said before, we all want scientists to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, and Parkinson's. But the question still remains: does the end justify the means?

No, it does not. As Huebscher pointed out in his message to the Joint Committee on Finance, "Each of us is vulnerable at some point in our lives. All of us are vulnerable before we are born. Many of us are vulnerable in the market place, at moments of illness, or at other times. But being weak or vulnerable does not deprive us of our moral claim on the community to respect our human value."

Huebscher insists that even in times of fiscal austerity, "we must go the extra mile and exercise a 'preferential option' for the embryo, the low wage worker, the family without health insurance, and others who are similarly vulnerable."

Perhaps it is easier to sympathize with a person out of work or a poor family. We can see them. They may be our family members, neighbors, or friends.

But we cannot see an embryonic stem cell, except under a microscope. Although that tiny embryo is a human person and contains all the genetic material to become like you or me, it is not so visible. The embryo needs our protection perhaps even more than others in our society.

Other avenues are open. "Destroying embryos is not the only avenue open to medical advances," Huebscher pointed out. "Research relying on adult stem cells has led to numerous, effective treatments and is paving the way for additional future cures." Generations from now, he says, people will wonder why we felt it necessary to destroy life to cure diseases.

Please contact members of the Joint Committee on Finance and ask them to support this budget motion to prevent the use of tax dollars to fund research destroying human embryos. To contact the state legislature, go to www.legis.state.wi.us or call 1-800-228-2115 or 608-266-9960 in the Madison area.

Mary C. Uhler, editor

Mailbag

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Expressing gratitude for donation

To the publisher:

On behalf of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), I am writing to thank you and all of the faithful of the Diocese of Madison for your very generous 2004 collection contribution of $23,479.46.

This support enables the Church in the United States to continue to support people who are poor to break the cycle of poverty.

For more than three decades the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has been able to support low-income people as they find a way out of poverty for themselves and for their communities. We turn the gifts of individual parishioners into hope for themselves and their communities caught in a cycle of poverty.

In 2004, you helped CCHD grant $9 million in support of 330 local projects in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We are proud to be one of the largest private funders of anti-poverty programs initiated and led by people living in poverty.

In his World Day of Peace Message for 2005, Pope John Paul II invited "all who believe in Christ to show, practically and in every sector, a preferential love for the poor." Through their gifts to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the people of your diocese demonstrated just such a love.

Timothy F. Collins, interim executive director,
Catholic Campaign for Human Development
Washington, D.C.

Addressing Catholic identity

To the editor:

Ever since Pope John Paul II issued the encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae, many Catholic colleges and Catholic universities have been ignoring the contents of that encyclical. Cardinal Edward Egan of the Archdiocese of New York was the first bishop to exercise his right under Ex Corde Ecclesiae to publicly confirm a college's loss of Catholic identity.

In spite of several warnings, Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., hosted the fiercely anti-life New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as its commencement speaker. Cardinal Egan declared the college as "non-Catholic."

Catholic bishops have the authority to declare Catholic colleges and universities as non-Catholic. All they need to do is exercise that authority.

Charles J. Sippel, Waterloo