Another example

of why the unarmed should not get into a battle of wits. While the fireworks can be pretty, it's usually a pretty bad end for the wick. Yeah, I have commentary, but why ruin the work of a master?

Conscience and Your Vote

That's the title of the booklet that was in every bulletin in every (as far as I know) Catholic church this weekend in the Diocese of Manchester. I've been meaning to write about it all week but, well, my Advent hasn't been as restful as it should be. With AmP picking it up though, I decided it was high time to give my "on the ground" assessment. You can read the document here and Bishop McCormack's introductory letter is here.

The first thing everyone noticed was that their bulletin was much heavier and stiffer than usual. This was particularly so for those who prefer to read the bulletin before Mass rather than pray or read the Scripture readings for the day and thus before the announcements. The document isn't your usual "make five hundred copies of this" bulletin insert, it's a tri-fold full-color document printed on what I'll call card stock. Just the weight of it, let alone the fact that it's in full color, lends to the intent of the document. This was not a low-cost production by any means, which hopefully translates into people actually reading and praying about the contents of the document.

It does not break any new theological or Catholic social teaching ground, but what it does do is put in clear terms the proper hierarchy of values. It is also quite explicit that it is not a "voter guide" and I think it does a very good job of not pointing fingers at any campaign which is, as a non-profit organization, a requirement.

What it does do, however, is lay out in simple but direct terms a correct explanation of conscience and how a conscience is properly formed. I'd like to wish that this section was more explicit in how serious the issue of "primacy of conscience" is and how spiritually dangerous it is to turn away from the Church's teachings. That said, I'm not sure they could have done a sufficient job of that in the limited space and attention span they had to work with and if they tried to go deeper and failed it would have been a spectacular failure. I am left to hope that this statement catches peoples' attention and moves them to think:

A Catholic should never perform or support an intrinsically evil act and rely on conscience to justify it. In such instances, either one's conscience is not fully informed in light of the Gospel and Church teaching (and one is obliged to have an informed conscience) or one acts against what one's conscience knows to be true.

Before you ask, yes a list of some of the intrinsically evil acts is provided so people can not excuse themselves for not knowing that abortion is an intrinsically evil act.

I hope most (I would pray all) readers got to the section regarding basic guidelines where a good yet simple ordered list is given (the fact that it is ordered is critical here). Note in particular the second and third items:

First, recall the sacredness of all human life and the dignity of the human person. All moral decision-making must be informed and guided by these fundamental values.

Second, acknowledge that not all issues are of equal importance or urgency. A commitment to basic human values - rather that self-interest or past political loyalties - should always guide one's vote.

Third, remember that we believe in absolute moral norms that can never be violated for any reason. The most relevant of these absolute norms is the prohibition against the deliberate destructino of innocent human life.

Fourth, all people are called to live holy and upright lives. Our conscientious political decisions contribute to - or impede - our movement toward genuine holiness of life and the good of our society.

Again, yes, this could be sharper but the goal here is to get the person's attention, not to scare them away. Properly actualized morality is not undirected blind obedience but a participatory action even when the only motivating factor is trust and faith in another without full personal understanding.


I should also mention, since it caught my attention, that the document quotes not only Forming Consciences but also Pope Benedict's Deus caritas est and Pope John Paul II's Evangelium vitae. That they are quoting both of the last two Popes warms the cockles of my heart - that they are two of my favorite Papal documents of recent times is but an adder.

With New Hampshire being at the head of the primary season and so many candidates doing such a fine job of skirting around their positions on issues critical to Catholics I am very heartened to see the Diocese put together a strong reminder for us all that we do not leave our Catholicism outside the voting booth, that it rather must be at the very core of our being, shaping our every action. It is at times like this that we need to hear the voice of our Shepherd, and that it be clear and strong.

I find it only proper that with the Catholic Kennedy from Massachusetts first broaching the issue of Catholic faith by distancing himself from it that another New England institution might finally respond in such a way by calling us all to "draw near to God" (James 4:8). Or, perhaps in a slightly more full context: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." (James 4:8-9a)

Allowing political speech from the pulpit?

Mark Joseph has penned an interesting article on the FoxNews site suggesting the repeal of the LBJ-crafted amendment restricting political speech from any 501c3 (i.e. tax-exempt, non-profit) organization which includes almost all churches. Your assignment: read, think about it and discuss.

For my part, I think the LBJ amendment has been far less harmful than the Blaine amendment which the author mentions at the top. The Blaine amendment is understood by just about anyone who is honest to have been an attempt to stop Catholics from creating their own schools. The impact of the restriction on political speech, however, has been somewhat more difficult for me to quantify. Interestingly, the author spends a good amount of space describing cases where the amendment failed to stop political involvement but only required slightly more circumspect pronouncements.

I have to be honest. I'm frankly not interested in encouraging political speech from the pulpit in a country where we already waste about a quarter of our adult lives inundated by politics. Even with this restriction in place, I've heard more complaints about Iraq, taxes and immigration than I care to already and removing whatever restrictor plates are in place is not particularly appetizing to me.

First, as Catholics we believe in the principle of subsidiarity. That means, in effect, that those closest to a situation are generally the best to resolve it. It further means that the further removed you are, the more general your stance must be, sometimes to the chagrin of those who would like a specific over-arching statement requiring compliance. This also means that we adhere to a principle of allowing for prudential judgment by those whose role it is to make such judgments in cases of application. The Catechism is very clear on this. It would be contrary to the stance of the Church to now encourage direct political action from the pulpit.

Second, quite frankly I don't go to Mass to hear about politics - I go to Mass to hear about God and to be formed to Him. Our liturgy is intended (all other discussion about the state of our liturgy aside) to raise us up to Heaven, not to swirl us around in the mud pile of human politics. Certainly there are times when moral issues which are also political must be approached and rightly so. They must, however, be approached from God's perspective, not Man's. If you want to bring up, say, immigration that's perfectly fine - but do so from the dual perspectives of the inherent dignity of the human person and the need and right of a country to properly regulate immigration, not from the perspective of "Senator Jimmy JoBob is proposing XYZ and you need to call his office to support/attack it". Help us to keep our eyes fixed on God and our bodies, and votes, will follow.

Tags: Catholic, Politics

Add one to the heroes file

Leticia at causa nostrae laetitiae just made my day. And my list of modern-day unsung heroes. Any time people these days directly confront their representatives in government and offer the unadulterated Gospel one has to take notice, and she's done it in spades here. It's one thing to write an anonymous letter, another to write a signed letter, and entirely another to make a public stand. May we all learn from her example...

Tags: Catholic, Abortion, Pro-Life, Stem Cell Research

Interview with Philip Jenkins

Jeremy Lott has a very interesting interview with Philip Jenkins over at CWR. The topics range from the Islamicization of Europe to American Exceptionalism and more. Particularly interesting is his take on European demographics, which suggests that things really aren't quite as bad in terms of an Islamic take-over as some people think they are. Mostly so because, he suggests, Muslims tend to act like most other groups - there are a core group of committed fundamentalists who are small in number but loud in volume and then there are the rest who are interested in integrating as much as possible.

Add to that the overall trend over time that the second and third generations tend to integrate into their host societies more than their predecessors and the picture he paints is not nearly as negative as that we've heard otherwise. I'm not saying that he's right, but rather that he is bringing up a different set of facts. It's now time for those who are more dour on the prospects to respond, I would think, integrating these facts or providing proof they either don't apply or are mis-used. To be honest, I'm not a demographics expert so I have no particular leverage either way. As usual, I expect the end result to be somewhere in the middle but I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out much worse.

H/T to The Roving Medievalist.

Tags: Catholic, Islam, Politics, Eurabia, Demographics

Weighing in on the Edwards controversy

Let me commit a argumentation faux pas and begin with my conclusion: John Edwards, you're wrong. That said, let's back up a step.

It's interesting to notice how even the "conservative" press are handling this issue. Even Fox News' page on the issue takes a ten-foot pole approach. In essence, they apologized, he's okay with their apologies, so we'll all go on our merry way and whistle past the graveyard. But this graveyard is filled with hate that just won't die. The world of politics is littered with half-hearted apologies of the moment, meant only for sound bite and never intended to have any bite.

Why am I perturbed? Read their posts and if you're not perturbed that someone like this is advising someone in any fashion I'll make a sweater out of the wool that's over your eyes. Let's start with this now infamous quote from Amanda Marcotte as she attempts to explain Catholicism to Catholics:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

Repugnant? You bet. Ignorant? I don't think so. She wrote knowing full well her sexual innuendo would inflame passions on both sides of the issue. Pure raw meat for the rabid secularist left, outright blasphemy for those who happen to admit that there's something more than me around here. I am impressed, however, that she both managed to rhyme her last line and use the word misogyny against the Catholic Church. It's a tactic that's never been tried before. I'm sorry, was that oozing with sarcasm?

Why do I care? Why shouldn't I just live and let live like we always demand of others in the public sphere? Because these are the very people who stand up and demand firings for much, much less than this. "Fire them, fire them all!" is the tribal chant for those in politics searching for a camera crew and a microphone. But yet when it comes close to them, all of the sudden they're all about "traditional" values and Christian forgiveness. Right. Next.

But what I find funny is how people just refuse to actually look at what's been written rather than just accept pre-formatted apologies that her "intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics." Surely, utterly, unbelievably, beyond belief you jest. Those statements were made specifically to offend, and they had very little to do with public politics. But that's okay, eventually the term "proof by assertion" is something they'll come to learn.

While the overstatement is unfortunate, this apology reminds me of the imams who preach peace in public in English but violence and destruction when they think they're not being watched. Dale has a good list of the coverage this has engendered here and here. The only good news for those of us who care is that by taking such public positions their abilities to pull these antics will be sharply curtailed. I have no doubts their hatred for the Catholic Church remain, but one can only hope and pray that this spotlight on their darkened souls just might provide some opportunity for reflection. Pray for them both, they need it more than they're willing to know.

Tags: Catholic, Politics

By their fruits

In Matthew 7:16 and 7:20 we are told, "by their fruits you will know them". In the case of our new House Speaker Nancy "Conservative Catholic Grandmother" Pelosi, that's already proving to be a very unfortunate fact. The depravities to which our politicians are willing to sink seem to know no end. From CWN:

Washington, Jan. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The US House of Representatives today approved a bill providing for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research.

The legislation, which was listed among the top priorities of the new Democratic leadership in Congress, is a direct challenge to President George W. Bush, who has indicated that he would veto the bill. Although the bill was expected to clear the House, the vote (253-174) fell more than 30 votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be required to override a presidential veto. The bill now goes before the Senate.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hailed the January 11 vote as a victory for medical research, and urged Bush “to join members from both sides of the aisle in supporting the hope of stem cell research."

Opponents of the bill observed that stem-cell research can be pursued without using human embryos. In fact the most promising scientific results to date have come from studies using stem cells derived from other sources, including blood marrow and amniotic fluid. Embryonic stem-cell research requires the destruction of human embryos, whereas the harvesting of stem cells from other sources involves no significant moral concerns.

The vote in Congress came just after publication of a breakthrough medical study showing the stem cells from amniotic fluid could be developed for medical purposes more quickly than those from embryonic tissue.

The legislation approved by the House of Representatives closely resembled a bill that was passed by Congress last year, but stopped by a presidential veto, which the Republican-controlled Congress upheld.

The only good news here is that it is very likely the President will veto this bill as well and it does not appear Congress is willing to overturn his veto. This does, however, remind all of us just how desperate the members of the culture of death are to turn back any advances and to continue to make inroads anywhere and everywhere they can. One does question if there is, in fact, anything they will not stoop to in adoration of their idols.

Tags: Catholic, Pro-life, Abortion, Politics, ESCR, Stem Cell Research

Shocked! No, not really...

From the "I'm shocked - shocked" department, via CWN:

Jan. 5, 2007 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - By John-Henry Westen

The New York Times is seriously contemplating removing its public editor (ombudsman) position, which was instituted in 2003 to be an independent voice for the public within the paper in order to maintain credibility, LifeSiteNews reports. The new move comes in the wake of current public editor Byron Calame's confirmation that LifeSiteNews was correct in asserting that the Times made a major error in reporting on criminal penalties for abortion in El Salvador.

The first recorded mention of the intention to axe the position was raised at a December 15 New York Times meeting when executive editor Bill Keller raised the idea. That meeting was held about a week after Calame began asking very uncomfortable questions of senior editors at the Times, and receiving in response terse replies rejecting his warnings that the NYT magazine had been caught in a serious error which deserved correction.

With information from contacts in El Salvador, LifeSiteNews had pointed out that the cover article in the NYT magazine of April 6 claimed falsely that some women in El Salvador were imprisoned for thirty years for illegal abortions. LifeSiteNews published the full court ruling in the case, which showed that rather than being jailed for a clandestine abortion, as the Times magazine asserted - the case study cited actually concerned infanticide of a full-term baby.

Calame describes his struggle with the editors of the Times in the pages of the paper saying, "After the English translation of the court ruling became available on Dec. 8, I asked Mr. Marzorati (NYT magazine editor) if he continued to have 'no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts' in the article. His e-mail response seemed to ignore the ready availability of the court document containing the findings from the trial before the three-judge panel and its sentencing decision."

Calame also struggled with the Times' standards editor. "I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the publisher bring the court's findings to the attention of those readers who received the 'no reason to doubt' response, or that a correction be published," writes Calame. He notes that no decision to issue a correction had been made despite the overwhelming evidence.

Soon after these exchanges the December 15 meeting occurred at which the proposal to eliminate the public-editor position was raised.

In his December 31 publication of the article exposing the NYT magazine story errors, Calame concludes, "One thing is clear to me, at this point, about the key example of Carmen Climaco. Accuracy and fairness were not pursued with the vigor Times readers have a right to expect."

Calame told LifeSiteNews that his personal position at the Times was not in question since his "non-renewable, two-year contract to serve as public editor ends May 8, 2007."

LifeSiteNews contacted Times spokesman Abbe Serphos for comment, but she did not respond by press time.

Hmmm... Journalistic malpractice at the NYT? As I said at the top, I'm shocked - shocked to hear of it. No...wait... I'm not. Here's hoping the continued negative attention their thinly-veiled political maneuverings are getting for them eventually forces them to retreat to some level of respectable journalism. I'm not expecting to hold my breath for it though. Sadly.

Tags: Abortion, Politics, Journalism

Chaput: "Secularism isn’t really morally neutral."

From CNA (emphasis mine):

Speaking to a crowd of some 700 people gathered in Garden Grove, California, for the Orange County Catholic Prayer Breakfast, Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap. decried the growing exclusion of religion from the public square, and called for a shift in perspective regarding the place of religious believers in a democratic society.

...

However, he pointed out, there are key differences between non-sectarian public institutions and a secularist ideology. No Christian, Chaput said, should want to live under the tyranny of a secularist ideology. “Whenever you hear loud fretting sparked by an irrational fear of an Established Church, somebody’s trying to force religious believers and communities out of the public discussion of issues.”

“Secularism isn’t really morally neutral. It’s actively destructive…It ignores the most basic questions of social purpose and personal meaning by writing them off as private idiosyncrasies,” the archbishop said.

...

“Democracy,” Chaput said, “does not mean putting aside our religious and moral beliefs for the sake of public policy. In fact, it demands exactly the opposite. Democracy depends on people of character fighting for their beliefs in the public square – legally, ethically and non-violently, but forcefully and without apology.”

“Democracy is not God. Only God is God. Even democracy stands under the judgment of God and God’s truths about human purpose and dignity,” he added.

Couldn't say it better if I wanted to. Denver is blessed to have such a faithful Bishop.

H/T to Indolent Server.

Tags: Catholic, Politics, Democracy, Public Square

Crooked pizza?

In the bustling metropolis that is my home town of Manchester, NH, this is what passes for big news. To boil it all down, the school administration has awarded a $200K contract to provide pizzas to the schools to a company whose two owners have criminal records. What makes the story interesting is that the school board did not run any background checks on the owners during the bidding process, so of course now everyone has the opportunity to say, "if we'd known about this...". Of course, there are questions of whether it's both legal and practical to run background checks on every single vendor for the school system. My question is, if you had known about their background you would have done what, honestly?

First, let's look at the situation. The couple's company is contracted to provide cooked and uncooked pizzas to the schools in Manchester; they will not be "in" the schools other than for delivery of the goods so in practice they do not pose any physical threat to the students. The only threat they may pose is to fail to deliver on the contract by either: 1) failing to deliver the agreed upon pizzas or 2) delivering objectively (vs. subjectively) substandard goods. I'd suggest it is debatable whether a subjective grading of the pizzas delivered would be a good measuring stick - some students complained that they use crushed tomatoes vs. pureed tomatoes; neither of these qualifies the product as "inferior" in an objective sense but rather against the particular tastes of the particular student. Now, if a majority (or perhaps to be fair a super-majority) of the students find the pizzas sufficiently subjectively inferior that may qualify as an objective substandard good in my book.

So...the question being run around town is, should the board void the contract and start a secondary bidding process taking into account background checks? In my opinion, all other things being equal (i.e. the bidding process was otherwise without controversy), it would be a moral wrong to pull an already granted contract from someone based on a past action for which the offender has already paid their debt to society (in this case, the article notes the owner has served jail time and is making monthly payments on his $60K debt to the state). To continue to punish a person for an offense is not only un-American, it's un-Christian. Certainly, of course, current contrition for a past act does not preclude future recurrence, but to assume "once a crook always a crook" stands in direct contrast to the Christian teaching that people are basically good.

Now, of course, there is a question of protecting both the school system (from being bilked out of contract monies) and the students (from being provided objectively substandard, or no, goods). These issues should be handled, however, in either the original contract or in amendments to the contract to stop payment and/or terminate the contract based on sufficient and well-designed metrics. But then, one would hope that such performance metrics would be a part of the contract regardless the criminal record of the contractor. Perhaps that points to the real heart of the matter - it is too easy to pull one over on government agencies and people are sensitive to that, as well as the fact that the assumed proximate victims in this case are school children. But let us not forget that the crimes the owners were convicted of were fraud and theft, respectively, not assault or anything like that; they tried to cheat, not to harm anyone. If the contract is written properly, the children would have to suffer at most one or two days of bad or no pizza before the situation were rectified.

So to wrap up, it is (obviously) my opinion that it is against proper morals to reject a person for a contract based solely on a small sampling of prior acts which have been settled in the legal system and whose debts have been (or are currently being) paid. It is wrong to, effectively, ruin someone's life after their debt to society has been made in full. At the same time, while it is a Christian principle to forgive, it is also stupid to forget, so one should take extra measures to ensure proper and full compliance with the intent of the granted contract. In the end, this case should come down to drawing up a proper and airtight contract with appropriate awards and penalties clauses, not judging the rest of a person's life on his or her past. "If any one of you is without sin..."

Tags: Morality, Politics

Bush appoints pro-life doctor to post

According to this CWN article President Bush has appointed a doctor with strong ties to the pro-life movement as the assistant secretary of Health and Human Service. In this post Dr. Eric Keroak will be responsible for supervising the disbursement of $283 million in federal grant money.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Keroack had served as a medical director for crisis-pregnancy centers operated by A Women's Concern, a Massachusetts non-profit group that operates several crisis-pregnancy centers in the Boston area. The group-- which has won state and federal grants for abstinence education-- takes a firm stand against family-planning programs that encourage contraceptive use.

It may just possibly be that President Bush has heard the message that came from his famous "values voters" in this last election, that if he won't push forward those values he risks their support. Perhaps this is the first positive fruits of what was an absolutely disastrous election for pro-life supporters. It may take a while, but I expect to see the leading Democrats attempt to attach anti-life riders and amendments to just about any bill that comes through, particularly ones like the annual omnibus budget which the president is nearly forced to sign. This may well be the most corrosive two years of politics we have seen in a long time. Keep your hats on folks.

Tags: Pro-Life, Politics, Bush

Something to chew on before the voting booth

I'm still working through C.S. Lewis' classic Mere Christianity. One would swear I'm reading slower as I get older. Or perhaps it's that as I get older I'm paying more attention to what I'm reading; I rather like to believe it is the latter rather than the former. But enough of that.

I was making my way the other day through his section on Social Morality and had to re-read his conclusion to the section. Not because, as usual, I was distracted but rather because it really struck me in how utterly relevant it is to us as Catholics as we try to decide in the voting process how we are to balance the different issues. His call is, simply, remember that we are to be Christians first, then political entities. If we are lacking in the fullness of our Christian witness it is likely we will be lacking in our political positions as well.

A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat 'Do as you would be done by' till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward - driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest way home.

Tags: Catholic, Politics, C.S. Lewis

Hatchet job at Fox News

For those of you who think Fox News is just a mouthpiece for the Right here's a nice little hatchet job on Patricia Heaton because of her work on the part of the pro-life work against the Missouri Amendment 2 issue. What starts out as a decent piece of unbiased reporting quickly descends into a near polemic against the pro-life cause and fawning over Michael J. Fox because of his history as a successful actor and the success of his charity. What exactly those two issues have to do with his standing as a knowledgeable spokesman for the cause of stem cell research is beyond me, but that's what we're left with. Contrast this:

Heaton has been a relatively unknown political ideologist to most of her fans. My guess is they will be surprised to learn about her as she attacks Fox and repudiates his claims.

Six months ago I reported that Heaton — who then was campaigning to join ABC’s talk show "The View" as a correspondent — was honorary chairwoman of the group Feminists for Life. Jane Roberts, wife of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, is a consultant. Their slogan is "Refuse to Choose."

Heaton has absolutely made a choice. The question now is whether her stance in Missouri will affect her standing in Hollywood.

With this:

But it’s what Fox has done with his illness that is most impressive. Since 2001, according to federal records, his Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research has raised an astonishing $80 million for research. Unlike most celebrity charities, the Fox Foundation has a Web site that even links to its most recent federal tax filing, and the filing is current.

This is an amazing achievement, considering how young the foundation is. Fox has turned his illness into something incredibly positive; the group even runs in the black, meaning its income is greater than its expenses. Last year the group finished with $7 million in the bank after giving away $17 million.

If you want to get into some real interesting reading on Parkinson’s, check out www.michaeljfox.org. Impressive!

And you tell me which side of things you think the reporter is on. I am forced to lean towards calling this irresponsible reporting. Perhaps this is Fox News' way of maintaining they are "fair and balanced" but a hatchet job like this is hardly worthy of any news outlet.

Tags: Catholic, Pro-life, Politics, Hollywood, Journalism

Critical issue in Missouri

The indefatigable American Papist is providing some good coverage (here, here and here) of the Amendment 2 issue in Missouri. While I know I don't get the kind of circulation he does, if I get even one person who can vote to read a little it's worth the time. The long story short of it is that Amendment 2 is being portrayed as a way to fund stem cell research and sold as outlawing cloning while having specific language that codifies a state constitutional right to cloning. I love politicians. The good news is that some big names are coming to the defense of humanity, including Jim Caviezal and Jeff Suppan (pitching tonight, BTW).

Father Jonathan at Fox News also has begun posting entries on this at his blog. I'm going to lift a little from him because he explained it very well if I do say so:

Do Missourians know what they are actually voting for?

Opponents of the referendum say the lengthy 2,400-word amendment serves as a master plan of deceit to trick Missourians into legalizing human cloning. They point to two apparently contradictory sections within the Amendment.

Section 2 (1) states, “No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being”

A voter who reads this may think that he or she is voting to approve embryonic stem cell research as long as it does not permit human cloning.

Not so fast, say opponents.

Section 6 (5) defines embryonic stem cell research to include a common method of cloning. “Human embryonic stem cell research, also referred to as ‘early stem cell research’, means any scientific or medical research involving human stem cells derived from in vitro fertlization blastocysts or from somatic cell nuclear transfer.”

“Somatic cell nuclear transfer” is the scientific term for therapeutic cloning, the very same method used to clone “Dolly”.

Tags: Catholic, Politics, Cloning, Pro-life