Vatican Slams Obama For Stem Cell Order

VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican official for bioethics on Tuesday criticized U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to fund broader research into stem cells.

Monsignor Rino Fisichella said Obama's executive order was a "victory of politics over ethics" and suggested the U.S. administration was looking out for the interests of drug companies.

Fisichella, who heads the Pontifical Academy for Life, was quoted by Italy's ANSA news agency as saying that "probably some drug companies, or some economic interests" influenced the decision to reverse the restrictions on funding imposed by the Bush administration.

Scientists hope to use embryonic stem cells to regenerate diseased cells in those suffering a variety of fatal or debilitating diseases. Former President George W. Bush had limited the use of taxpayer money allowed for the research, saying it required the destruction of embryos and is therefore morally wrong.

On Monday, Obama said he was ending what he believed was "a false choice between sound science and moral values," adding that the research shows great potential and that "with proper guidelines and strict oversight, the perils can be avoided."

The US Bishops' Conference has also criticized the move and the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano newspaper ran an article on Tuesday reiterating the Catholic Church's position, which holds that embryos must be considered human beings.

The article did not directly mention Obama's decision but said that protecting embryos should be "the basis of a real democracy, capable of recognizing the equality of all men and of avoiding any unjust discrimination based on their development or health."

Comments

[Bpeirce]

I just have one question to our Hypocritical Vatican. Whats Cardinal Law up to these days?

[GOBLOX]

Moral Relevance & The Catholic Government­... uhh, I mean Church is oxymoronic!

[ExxonMcBushCo]

The Catholic Church also went after Galileo Galilei, who dared assert that the earth revolved around the sun.

His response?

"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition.

[GOBLOX]

EGGZAKTLY!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!! Not to mention the sexual abuse allegations as of late. Me thinks they protest too much.

[Heady]

Rights for the unborn!

But no rights for little Timmy who was fondled by Reverend Boyjoy!

[Inlike]

Pope says a zygote is a human life. So has he made provision for a zygote baptism in case, you know, a zygote is unwillingly discharged?

Do people know that for 1700 years any catholic saying a foetus under 40 days gestation is a human would have been burned at the stake (after torture, of course) for heresy?

And finally one for the ladies. Are you sitting down? The great catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas after much study declared the soul enters a male foetus after 40 days from conception, but, (are you ready ladies?) god gives the soul to female foetuses after 80 days.

Sheltered celibates living their pampered, insulated lives in material and emotional cocoons are the worst possible sources of advice on IVF, contraception, abortion, marital sex, or anything else pertaining to human relationship. They know as much about man-woman relationships as I know about theVatican balance sheet of assets and assets - (liabilities are for us ordinary folk!).

[balrog221]

When will we atheists be able to come out of the closet? When will reason and science finally overwhelm the dogma of religion? Why is it that those who think critically and expose the unproven claims and hypocrisies of organized religion are the one that are maginalized. Our body of research and science in educated is way way beyond this discourse. The mythology is laid bare for all to see.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 06:13 PM on 03/10/2009

[PlaceboStudman]

I don't know about you, but I've been out of the closet and rampantly flaunting my atheism for years. I don't give a damn if someone I don't know, and certainly dont respect tries to tell me that an invisible man in the sky who doesn't exist tries to send me to a place that doesn't exist either

[balrog221]

It's not the likes of me... I am with you on that. But the people who know better and still b end over to accomadate these fantasies.­.. Guys like POTUS i suspect

[balrog221]

It is amazing that we have advanced to a state of equality in the first world that allows formerly stigmatized groups such as blacks and gays to participate fully in the political arena. Awsome testament to our progress..­..and yet a candidate who refuses to believe in an imaginary idol called GOD, is unelectable in the US.

The candidate must either profess his or her belief even if they do not actually believe, as many I am sure do...or even worse, they must believe with out a shred of evidence in a book that is so clearly fictional as the bible. Many consider it literally true and others are more selective, but submit to it you must or you will kiss your political aspirations goodbye.

[Agent420]

Note to the Vatican: F.U.C.K. Y.O.U.!

[levelshot]

Good One! :)

[Samlas]

Who cares about the Catholic church, they have enough money to end world hunger and what do they do with it? They spend it on buying expensive Art. Nothing they say or do is rational or logical.

[OliverTwist]

"The US Bishops' Conference has also criticized the move and the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano newspaper ran an article on Tuesday reiterating the Catholic Church's position, which holds that embryos must be considered human beings."

If only the Catholic Church had a history of showing as much for developed human beings as it shows for embryos which they say "must be considered human beings".

"Fisichella, who heads the Pontifical Academy for Life, was quoted by Italy's ANSA news agency as saying that "probably some drug companies, or some economic interests" influenced the decision to reverse the restrictions on funding imposed by the Bush administra­tion."

I am suprised that Monsignor Rino Fisichella is prepared to assign probabilities of truth to his own ideas about the influences and intentions of the President's stem cell decision rather than just take the President's word about thoughts and intentions.

The Catholic Church has indeed sunk low in the quality of it's thinking and judgement.

Too bad.

[1differentdrummer]

Who are these people working for the bishop of Rome to comment on US affairs? Does our government meddle in their Vatican affairs? Maybe they should lose their tax-exempt status.

[RoveRoveRoveYourBoat]

HEY!...exp­loiting the young and defenceless is OUR JOB!!!

[SamKnause]

Anyone who is still listening to the Catholic church has no credibility. It is filled with child molesters, holocaust deniers, and just plain whacked out people. When a church says it is wrong for a raped nine year old girl pregnant with twins to have an abortion, who would listen? When the church excommunicates the girl, her mother, and the doctors who preformed the abortion, but lets the rapist remain in the church, who would listen? I will never understand this out right crazy way of thinking. When are people going to start using their brains and see all the lies they have been told?

[Macready]

totally agree with you . . the catholic church wants people to obey the rules they have created . . . but it flunks big time as a religion . . when it cannot offer hope or support to people who are suffering . . . and it continues to flunk this test big time . . . stem cell research is necessary to help relieve suffering . . . it has so many possibilities for helping people . . . when I think about the 9 year-old girl in Brazil who had to have an abortion and the catholic church's response to that . . .well . . . this church flunks big time as an organisation to help give support to their flock in time of deep emotion distress . . . the only thing they care about is having people follow their rules like sheep . . . no one in their right mind should bother with this bunch . . . paedophilia was swept under the carpet for years . . . they are just a bunch of misogynistic men who think would be very happy living in the Middle Ages and don't forget the church is loaded . . . this guys who spout all this crap . . . are very secure in the trappings of wealth to cocoon themselves from the outside world

[ExPatriot70]

The RCC has perpetuated a myth for 2000+ years and has grown rich by doing so. They are a blight on the planet and there is no real reason for them to continue to exist

[daemos1]

As far as I am concerned, the vatican has zero credibility and shouldn't make pronouncements on moral issues, especially after their treatment of the family of that 9 year old brazilian girl who had to have an abortion after being raped.

[harrymellon]

But it's ok for them to molest and rape children and then cover it up? Me thinks the dark one has infiltrated the Church to make it look bad. Mission accomplished.