Florida Catholic | U.S. Bishops’ Orlando Meeting Yields Stem Cell Policy

U.S. Bishops’ Orlando meeting yields stem cell policy

DENISE O’TOOLE KELLY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 06.17.08

More than 100 American bishops attend Mass at the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe June 13. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held its semi–annual meeting in Orlando.

VALETA ORLANDO | FC
More than 100 American bishops attend Mass at the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe June 13. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held its semi–annual meeting in Orlando.

ORLANDO | The Catholic Church is all for research into how human stem cells can be used to help cure diseases and heal injuries. Its opposition is to obtaining those cells by destroying embryos rather than harvesting them from adult tissues, umbilical cord blood or placentas.

“Lots of people, including Catholics, don’t have that distinction and that distinction has to be made,” Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito of the Palm Beach Diocese told the Florida Catholic, explaining one rationale behind a June 13 decision by the nation’s Catholic bishops to issue a statement reiterating the church’s teaching on stem cells.

The decision came during the annual spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the Grand Cypress Resort near Walt Disney World. The U.S. bishops meet twice a year. The fall meeting always takes place in the Washington, D.C., or Baltimore area and the spring meeting travels to various locations. The June 12-15 meeting was the first ever to take place in Florida, USCCB sources said.

STATE’S BISHOPS COMMENT

The stem-cell policy statement was the highest-profile, but among the least controversial agenda items among the bishops in attendance, who included the ordinaries of all seven Florida dioceses. It passed 191-1, without debate.

Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Orlando Diocese said in an interview that the church’s stance on stem-cell research has not changed, but that the time was right to devote a statement exclusively to it. Proposals to spend public money on embryonic stem-cell research are arising in various states and proponents of such measures are using emotional appeals and fostering confusion, he said.

“What we are trying to do is issue an articulation of our church’s teaching,” Bishop Wenski said.

The statement also keeps the details of the long-standing church teaching up to date with scientific advances.

“I think we see an area of the technology involved with stem cells that keeps evolving, keeps changing,” said Bishop Frank J. Dewane of the Diocese of Venice. “There is clear evidence that they can do just as much with stem cells” that are harvested from adult tissue.

“We are completely in favor of (stem-cell research),” he said. “What we are not in favor of is the embryonic stem-cell research where the embryo is destroyed.”

The bishops’ seven-page statement notes that “stem cells from adult tissues and umbilical cord blood are now known to be much more versatile that once thought,” are in widespread use to treat some cancers and are undergoing promising clinical trials in treatments for heart disease, corneal damage, sickle-cell anemia and multiple sclerosis. It also mentions recent laboratory research in which adult stem cells were “reprogrammed” with the properties of embryonic cells. “There is no moral objection to research and therapy of this kind,” according to the statement.

ABOUT THE EMBRYOS

The statement also rebuts several arguments used by those pushing for increased and publicly funded research with embryonic stem cells, including the contention that such research does not deprive anyone of life because it uses the “spare” embryos from fertility treatments that would never have been implanted in a woman’s womb and would have died anyway. “Ultimately each of us will die anyway, but that gives no one the right to kill us,” the statement reads.

In presenting the statement to the assembly of bishops the day prior to the vote, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of the bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities pointed out that the “spare” embryos argument shows how closely the embryonic stem-cell issue and morally troubling in vitro fertilization practices are linked. The situation is raising theologically complex questions such as whether it is morally acceptable for a couple to “adopt” an existing embryo to be implanted in the woman’s womb. The question is being pondered as high up as the Holy See, Archbishop Naumann said.

Bishop Wenski had raised the topic of embryo adoption or “rescue” in an interview aired by the local public radio station earlier in the day, and he elaborated for the Florida Catholic: “There’s still much reflection being done by theologians. … Basically what we are saying is that we would have it that the situation that creates the embryos would come to an end.”

Toward that objective, a longer pastoral document soon will be presented to the U.S. bishops for approval that will explain the church’s position on reproductive technologies and offer guidance for couples seeking morally acceptable ways to conceive, Archbishop Naumann told the bishops.

Bishop Barbarito said, in the meantime, his advice to couples in such situations would be consult with a priest and “not to despair, because there are ethical options.”

RECAP

At the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring meeting in Orlando, the bishops:

• Approved a 2,000–word policy statement calling embryonic stem cell research “gravely immoral.

• Failed to reach a conclusion on the fate of a 700–page translation of the proper readings of the Roman Missal.

• Gave permission for work to begin on new ethical guidelines on medically assisted nutrition and hydration.

• Heard an interim report on the cause and context of child sex abuse by priests.

• Began a dialogue with priests’ representatives on fallout from the clergy sex abuse scandal.

• Declared September 26, 2010, as National Catholic Charities Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of the network of Catholic social service agencies.

• Agreed to change the Spanish word “vosotros” to “ustedes” in the Spanish–language Masses in the U.S.

• Voted to keep the 2009 assessment on dioceses at the same level as 2008.

• Heard presentations on the implications for church life of recent surveys.

• Received an update on the work of task forces focusing on five USCCB priority areas.

• Spent nearly half of the meeting in closed regional meetings, executive sessions or in prayer.

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U.S. Bishops’ Orlando meeting yields stem cell policy

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