AB Cordileone: The heart of a lion, the patience of a saint

Our great Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone joins his predecessor the great Archbishop (and 'pink brick' award winner) George Niederauer in trying to open the closed heart of his lost sheep, Nancy Pelosi.

LifeSiteNews reports:

San Fran. archbishop responds to Pelosi: ‘No Catholic can dissent in good conscience’ on abortion

SAN FRANCISCO, January 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi repeatedly refused to say last week whether an unborn child at 20 weeks is a “human being,” her archbishop in San Francisco has responded by insisting that “no Catholic can dissent in good conscience” on abortion. 

CNSNews posed the question to Pelosi on January 22 in light of debate in the House of Representatives on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks except in cases of rape, incest, and a threat to the life of the mother. 

After twice refusing to say whether an unborn child at 20 weeks is a “human being,” she stated: “As a mother of five, in six years, I have great standing on this issue, great understanding of it, more than my colleagues.” She added that she knows more about “having babies” than even the pope. 

"It is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception," he said. "This has been established in medical science for over 100 years. Catholic moral teaching acknowledges this scientific fact, and has always affirmed the grave moral evil of taking an innocent human life.” 

“This has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the very beginning, a teaching already discernible in the natural moral law, and so a teaching from which no Catholic can dissent in good conscience,” he added.

Pastors, he said, have an “obligation … to reach out to their people who have difficulty understanding and accepting such important teachings of the Church in order to extend to them true pastoral care and, where appropriate, to establish a regular dialogue.”

“This is something I have always striven to do in the various ministries I have exercised as a priest and bishop, including now as the Archbishop of San Francisco. I ask for people’s prayers for success as I continue to strive to do this,” he said.

God bless His Excellency and His Excellency Niederauer before him.  I point out that even Don Bosco, one of the most beloved and kindest of Saints, threw a couple of boys out of the Oratory because he feared they would become a bad influence on others.

It's about 8 year's now since our dear Fr. Malloy (who was also very kind and patient) told Pelosi not to receive communion:

From the Pastors Desk

Nancy, you are fooling yourself and I fear fooling many good Catholics. You are simply not in sync with the Catholic Church. Until you change your non-Catholic positions, you should stop calling yourself Catholic. Your record shows that you support embryonic stem cell research, Planned Parenthood, contraception, family planning funding, allowing minors to have an abortion without parental consent, and are against making it a crime to harm a fetus, etc. etc.

The fact that you favor married priests and women priests certainly would not classify you as conservative, but your answer to the question are you a conservative Catholic was:

“I think so. I was raised in a very strict upbringing in a Catholic home where we respected people, were observant, were practicing Catholics, and that the fundamental belief was that God gave us all a free will, and we were accountable for that, each of us. Each person had that accountability, so it wasn’t for us to make judgments about how people saw their responsibility and that it wasn’t for politicians to make decisions about how people led their personal lives; certainly, to a high moral standards, but when it got into decisions about privacy and all the rest, then that was something that individuals had to answer to God for, and not to politicians.”

That sounds fair and tolerant, but your record belies high moral standards.

The NARAL rates you 100% pro-abortion. Your statement: “To me it isn’t even a question. God has given us a free will. We’re all responsible for our actions. If you don’t want an abortion, you don’t believe in it, [then] don’t have one. But don’t tell somebody else what they can do in terms of honoring their responsibilities. My family is very pro-life. They’re not fanatics and they’re not activists. I think they’d like it if I were not so vocally pro-choice.”

Do we not elect politicians to make laws that help people honor their responsibilities, such as protecting life itself? Can politicians not tell someone else not to kill? If you can kill a baby in the womb, Nancy, why not outside of it? Oh wait, you are in favor of partial birth abortion, so-called because the baby sticks out of the “mother” about halfway, while the “doctor” sucks out the baby's brain. That seems comparable to the choice the Nazis made killing six million Jews.

Yes, Nancy, we (together with your pro-life family) would all like it if you were not so vocally pro-choice, i.e. pro-death. Until your choice is in line with Catholic doctrine, please, Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass.
Rev. John Malloy, SDB

San Francisco, CA

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: Adult Stem-Cells Transformed into Functional Lung Cells!

It's been one of our mantras here at A Shepherd's Voice since Fr. Malloy, the Church and others opposed California's Proposition 71 in 2004: Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?

This is from Stem Cells Freak, a website devoted to  stem-cell news:

"Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center announced today that they have succeeded in transforming human induced pluripotent stem cells into functional lung and airway cells.

The advance, has significant potential for modeling lung disease, screening drugs, studying human lung development, and, ultimately, generating lung tissue for transplantation.

"Researchers have had relative success in turning human stem cells into heart cells, pancreatic beta cells, intestinal cells, liver cells, and nerve cells, raising all sorts of possibilities for regenerative medicine. Now, we are finally able to make lung and airway cells.

 
This is important because lung transplants have a particularly poor prognosis. Although any clinical application is still many years away, we can begin thinking about making autologous lung transplants -- that is, transplants that use a patient's own skin cells to generate functional lung tissue.", said study leader Hans-Willem Snoeck, MD, PhD (above, left), professor of medicine (in microbiology & immunology) and affiliated with the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative."

God bless all scientists who are ethically doing so much to better the human condition!

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: Researchers Grow Heart From Human Skin Cells

One of our long-time mantras here at "A Shepherd's Voice" is "Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

There have been too many adult-stem cell advances to count, but we just ran across this one today. It's an August 14 report from io9.com:

Breakthrough: Scientists build a beating mouse heart with human tissue

In a major scientific first, a team of developmental biologists has built a functional mouse heart from human tissues. The results herald a future where specific patches of heart muscle – or even the whole organ – could be grown for transplantation.

The work, which was led by University of Pittsburgh's Lei Yang and is recounted in the latest issue of Nature Communications, hinges on the combination of two major regenerative medicine techniques. The first is the use of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). iPS cells are mature, differentiated cells (liver cells, for instance, or skin cells) that have been reprogrammed into an undifferentiated state.RELATED

Like embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can be stimulated by growth factors to give rise to a wide range of different cell types; just because an iPS cell started out as, say, a renal cell expelled in the urine, doesn't mean it can't be coaxed into becoming dental tissue (fun fact: a team of researchers recently did exactly that) – it just needs the right set of instructions. Yang and his colleagues took cells from a small biopsy of human skin, reverse-engineered them into iPS cells, then instructed them to produce what are called multipotential cardiovascular progenitor cells. These "MCP cells," as they're called, are the precursors to three very important types of heart cell: cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells."

The same article had an embedded link to another adult stem-cell advance:

Scientists grow teeth from human urine because why the hell not

"A new study shows that stem cells extracted from urine can be turned into rudimentary tooth-like structures."

Read the whole thing

The freedom to murder a child is "Sacred Ground" for Nancy Pelosi

Our Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is trumpeting her "Catholicism" again. From LifeSiteNews:

"In response to a question today from a reporter about a late-term abortion ban that is being proposed in Congress, Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that the issue of late-term abortion is 'sacred ground' for her.

'As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this,' Pelosi said. 'This shouldn't have anything to do with politics.'"

Murder does not have anything to do with politics. The agreement that we are not free to murder another person is one of the preconditions that allows politics to come in to being. 

Here, once again, is the open letter to Nancy Pelosi that our dear departed Fr. Malloy wrote in a January 2007 parish bulletin at Saints Peter and Paul:

From the Pastors Desk

Nancy, you are fooling yourself and I fear fooling many good Catholics. You are simply not in sync with the Catholic Church. Until you change your non-Catholic positions, you should stop calling yourself Catholic. Your record shows that you support embryonic stem cell research, Planned Parenthood, contraception, family planning funding, allowing minors to have an abortion without parental consent, and are against making it a crime to harm a fetus, etc. etc.

The fact that you favor married priests and women priests certainly would not classify you as conservative, but your answer to the question are you a conservative Catholic was:
“I think so. I was raised in a very strict upbringing in a Catholic home where we respected people, were observant, were practicing Catholics, and that the fundamental belief was that God gave us all a free will, and we were accountable for that, each of us. Each person had that accountability, so it wasn’t for us to make judgments about how people saw their responsibility and that it wasn’t for politicians to make decisions about how people led their personal lives; certainly, to a high moral standards, but when it got into decisions about privacy and all the rest, then that was something that individuals had to answer to God for, and not to politicians.”

That sounds fair and tolerant, but your record belies high moral standards.

The NARAL rates you 100% pro-abortion. Your statement: “To me it isn’t even a question. God has given us a free will. We’re all responsible for our actions. If you don’t want an abortion, you don’t believe in it, [then] don’t have one. But don’t tell somebody else what they can do in terms of honoring their responsibilities. My family is very pro-life. They’re not fanatics and they’re not activists. I think they’d like it if I were not so vocally pro-choice.”

Do we not elect politicians to make laws that help people honor their responsibilities, such as protecting life itself? Can politicians not tell someone else not to kill? If you can kill a baby in the womb, Nancy, why not outside of it? Oh wait, you are in favor of partial birth abortion, so-called because the baby sticks out of the “mother” about halfway, while the “doctor” sucks out the baby's brain. That seems comparable to the choice the Nazis made killing six million Jews.

Yes, Nancy, we (together with your pro-life family) would all like it if you were not so vocally pro-choice, i.e. pro-death. Until your choice is in line with Catholic doctrine, please, Nancy, do not receive the Eucharist when you attend Mass.

Rev. John Malloy, SDB

San Francisco, CA

"Scam Cell": Will California Voters Learn From Proposition 71 Debacle?

It's been one of our mantras here at "A Shepherd's Voice": Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?

Of course, the adult stem-cell success are now too many to list. And this week Lloyd Billingsley has an excellent article in City Journal about where all that $3 billion of taxpayers money went. There is only $859 million of the $3 billion left. and the $2.1 billion already spent has not cured a headache.

Scam Cell
California’s embryonic stem-cell research institute fails to deliver.
14 March 2013

"The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s controversial, $3 billion stem-cell research agency, has yet to follow recommendations from a December report by the Institute of Medicine, a division of the National Academy of Sciences. The report, which urged the agency to overhaul its board of directors, did not fully convey the magnitude of CIRM’s failure—but it did confirm that CIRM might be better described as Conflict of Interest Research Money. Almost all members of the CIRM board, investigators noted, “are interested parties with a personal or financial stake in the allocation of CIRM fundings.” In fact, CIRM directed a full 91 percent of its research funding to institutions with representatives on its governing board. Similarly, the CIRM board overruled the Institute’s own scientific reviewers, who twice rejected a proposal to fund a for-profit company on whose behalf CIRM founder Robert Klein had lobbied, and the board went ahead and gave the money to the company anyway. According to a Sacramento Bee report, “it was the first time in the board’s eight-year history that it approved an application twice rejected by reviewers....

Yet CIRM has been a scientific bust. It played no role in noteworthy medical-scientific advances of recent years, such as the construction of a new windpipe for a Colombian woman or the near-total restoration of sight for a man whose eyes sustained severe chemical damage in 1948. These were triumphs of adult stem-cell research. A ballpark figure for the number of life-saving cures and therapies CIRM has delivered is zero. But as a staffer said at a meeting of the Little Hoover Commission in 2009, CIRM was “getting money out the door,” as though this was a legitimate measure of success.

CIRM was always more about the money than the medicine. Klein cleverly wrote Prop. 71 to install himself as the institute’s chairman, and he freed it from almost all legislative oversight by requiring a 70 percent supermajority of both houses to make any structural or policy changes...”

Do read the whole thing.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Archbishop: "A major political party that has intrinsic evils among its basic principles"

That would be the Papal Nuncio, His Excellency Carlo Maria Vignano, who also notes that influential "Catholics" and  professors at ostensibly Catholic universities are among the guilty. From Catholic News Agency:

"Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has told the University of Notre Dame that there is a concrete 'menace' to religious liberty in the U.S. that is advancing in part because some influential Catholic public figures and university professors are allied with those opposed to Church teaching.

'Evidence is emerging which demonstrates that the threat to religious freedom is not solely a concern for non-democratic and totalitarian regimes,' he said. 'Unfortunately it is surfacing with greater regularity in what many consider the great democracies of the world.'

The apostolic nuncio, who serves as the Pope’s diplomatic representative to the U.S., said this is a 'tragedy' for both the believer and for democratic society.

Archbishop Vigano’s Nov. 4 speech keynoted the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life conference. He discussed martyrdom, persecution, and religious freedom, with a particular focus on the United States.

 He cited Catholics’ duties to be disciples of Christ, not elements of a political or secular ideology. He lamented the fact that many Catholics are publicly supporting 'a major political party' that has 'intrinsic evils among its basic principles.'"

His Excellency is not talking about the Whigs. Or the Republicans. He's talking about the Democrats, and their allies within Catholic institutions.

 “There is a divisive strategy at work here, an intentional dividing of the Church; through this strategy, the body of the Church is weakened, and thus the Church can be more easily persecuted,” the nuncio said."
 Archbishop Vigano observed that some influential Catholic public officials and university professors are allied with forces opposed to the Church’s fundamental moral teachings on 'critical issues' like abortion, population control, the redefinition of marriage, embryonic stem cell research and 'problematic adoptions.'”

Exposing and combatting this is one of the reasons this blog was created.

Our Anti-Biblical President

  Extremely important things to know!!  Where is the "separation of church and state" when it comes to White House decisions? Some of us have seen these things as they happened, but seeing them here in once place is breathtaking. Christians need to know these things.  We need prayer plus action if we want to keep any religious freedoms.

 1. Acts of Hostility Toward People Of Biblical Faith:
          a. April 2008 – Obama speaks disrespectfully of Christians, saying they “cling to guns or religion” and have an “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
          b. February 2009 – Obama announces plans to revoke conscience protection for health workers who refuse to participate in medical activities that go against their beliefs, and fully implements the plan in February 2011.
          c.  April 2009 – When speaking at Georgetown University , Obama orders that a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name be covered when he is making his speech.
          d. May 2009 – Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House.
          e. April 2009 – In a deliberate act of disrespect, Obama nominated three pro-abortion ambassadors to the Vatican; of course, the pro-life Vatican rejected all three.
          f. October 19, 2010 – Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about  “the Creator” when quoting the Declaration of Independence – an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions.
          g. November 2010 – Obama misquotes the National Motto, saying it is “E pluribus Unum” rather than “In God We Trust” as established by federal law.
          h. January 2011 – After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial
in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled
that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand; but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law, and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court.
          i.  February 2011 – Although he filled posts in the State Department, for more than two years Obama did not fill the post of religious freedom
ambassador, an official that works against religious persecution across the world; he filled it only after heavy pressure from the public and from Congress.
          j.  April 2011 – For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.
          k.  August 2011 – The Obama administration releases its new health care rules that override  religious conscience protections for medical workers in the areas of abortion and contraception.
          l.  November 2011 – Obama opposes inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous D-Day Prayer in the WWII Memorial.
          m.  November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
          n.   December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.

          o.  January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
          p.  February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.

2. Acts of Hostility From The Obama-Led Military Toward People Of Biblical Faith:
          a. June 2011 – The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery .
          b. August 2011 – The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory to officers in California because the course is taught by chaplains and is based on a philosophy introduced by St. Augustine in the third century AD –  a theory long taught by civilized nations across the world (except America).
          c. September 2011 – Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of programs and services available to them from chaplains.
          d. September 2011 – The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical  Center stipulating that  “No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
          e. November 2011 – The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child, a program to send holiday gifts to impoverished children across the world, because the program is run by a Christian charity.
          f. November 2011 – The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 to add a Stonehenge-like worship center for pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans.
          g. February 2012 – The U. S. Military Academy at West Point dis-invites three star Army general and decorated war hero Lieutenant General William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin (retired) from speaking at an event because he is an outspoken Christian.
          h. February 2012 – The Air Force removes “God” from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin:  Dei).
          i. February 2012 – The Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read a letter to parishioners that their archbishop asked them to read.

3. Acts of Hostility Toward Biblical Values:
          a.  January 2009 – Obama lifts restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, forcing taxpayers to fund pro-abortion groups that either promote or perform abortions in other nations.
          b.  January 2009 – President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state asserts that American taxpayers are required to pay for abortions and that limits on abortion funding are unconstitutional.
          c.  March 2009 – The Obama administration shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House-sponsored health care summit.
          d.  March 2009 – Obama orders taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research.
           e.  March 2009 – Obama gave $50 million for the UNFPA, the UN population agency that promotes abortion and works closely with Chinese population control officials who use forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations.
          f.  May 2009 – The White House budget eliminates all funding for abstinence-only education and replaces it with “comprehensive” sexual education, repeatedly proven to increase teen
 pregnancies and abortions. He  continues the deletion in subsequent budgets.
          g.  May 2009 – Obama officials assemble a terrorism dictionary calling pro-life advocates violent and charging that they use racism in their “criminal” activities.
          h. July 2009 – The Obama administration illegally extends federal benefits to same-sex partners of Foreign Service and Executive Branch employees, in direct violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
          i.  September 16, 2009 – The Obama administration appoints as EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who asserts that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious  beliefs, if they may negatively affect homosexual “equality.”
          j.  July 2010 – The Obama administration uses federal funds in violation of federal law to get  Kenya to change its constitution to include abortion.
          k.  August 2010 – The Obama administration Cuts funding for 176 abstinence education programs.
          l.  September 2010 – The Obama administration tells researchers to ignore a judge’s decision striking down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
          m.  February 2011 – Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
          n. March 2011 – The Obama administration refuses to investigate videos showing Planned Parenthood helping alleged sex traffickers get abortions for victimized underage girls.
          o.  July 2011 – Obama allows homosexuals to serve openly in the military, reversing a policy originally instituted by George Washington in March 1778.
           p.  September 2011 – The Pentagon directs that military chaplains may perform same-sex marriages at military facilities in violation of the  federal Defense of Marriage Act.
          q.  October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the  U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion.
   
*4. Acts Of Preferentialism For Islam:
          a.  May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House dinners in honor of Ramadan.
          b.  April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is dis-invited from the Pentagon’s National Day  of Prayer Event because of  complaints from the Muslim community.
          c.  April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc.
          d.  August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity.
          e.  August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple  occasions on behalf of   building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location.
          f.  2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan,
          g.  October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House.
          h.  February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do.
Many of these actions are literally unprecedented – this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history.
 
The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president. Do we want another four years?

New Bishop for Orange County: Kevin Vann

This morning in Rome the Holy Father named Bishop Kevin Vann, Bishop of the diocese of FT. Worth, Texas, as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Orange. Bishop Vann will replace Bishop Tod Brown, who has reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. Bishop Vann is 61.

The well-informed Rocco Palma gives a quick sketch of the new bishop:

"Over recent years, it’s hard to think of a national project on which Bishop Kevin Vann hasn’t been intimately involved. 

From serving on the three-member USCCB team that oversaw the Stateside implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus and mediating the bench’s oft-delicate relations with the nation’s Catholic hospitals, to filing suit against the Federal government over the contraceptive mandate of the Obama administration’s sweeping health-care reform, the 61 year-old prelate has cris-crossed considerably more ecclesial turf than the sprawling 28 counties of Northwest Texas he’s overseen since 2005."

Here are some examples of the Bishop's attitude in defense of life and the family:

On Abortion:

In October of 2008 Bishop Vann, along with his brother Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas, issued a joint statement clarifying the meaning of the USCCB's Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship document. The statement asserted the absolute centrality of legalized abortion to our culture. All emphases in the original.

Therefore, we cannot make more clear the seriousness of the overriding issue of abortion – while not the "only issue" – it is the defining moral issue, not only today, but of the last 35 years. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, more than 48 million innocent lives have been lost. Each year in our nation more than one million lives are lost through legalized abortion. Countless other lives are also lost through embryonic stem cell research. In the coming months our nation will once again elect our political leaders. This electoral cycle affords us an opportunity to promote the culture of life in our nation. As Catholics we are morally obligated to pray, to act, and to vote to abolish the evil of abortion in America, limiting it as much as we can until it is finally abolished.

He is very serious about this. In the runup to the 2004 elections, while serving as a Monsignor in Chicago, he said he would deny Communion to John Kerry and other pro-abortion politicians. The "Pro-Life" webpage of the Ft. Worth diocese has a full page devoted to exposing the evil of Planned Parenthood.

Their Excellencies go on to say:

"Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, in paragraphs 34-37, addresses the question of whether it is morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who supports an intrinsic evil – even when the voter does not agree with the candidate's position on that evil. The only moral possibilities for a Catholic to be able to vote in good conscience for a candidate who supports this intrinsic evil are the following:

a. If both candidates running for office support abortion or "abortion rights," a Catholic would be forced to then look at the other important issues and through their vote try to limit the evil done; or,

b. If another intrinsic evil outweighs the evil of abortion. While this is sound moral reasoning, there are no "truly grave moral" or "proportionate" reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year.

To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or "abortion rights" when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil – and, therefore, morally impermissible."

On Marriage:

His Excellency is equally clear on what marriage is, and what it is not, and what it cannot be.  In a letter to the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders, Bishop Vann wrote:

"Marriage is possible only between a man and a woman because it is only between them that the full expression of marital love is possible. In creation there is a unique complementarity between man and woman. Implicated in it is what Pope John Paul II called a “nuptial meaning”---a capacity for mutual self-giving which is total, extending to the depths of each person. The nuptial meaning of the body and of the person does not exist between persons of the same sex---they cannot have intercourse---and therefore a marital communion between them is not possible. It is thus that God’s will for man and woman to come together in a communion of love in marriage is written in the very nature of human beings. Such a union between persons of the same sex is impossible because human nature intrinsically does not allow for it."

His Excellency also expressed gratitude that the TLM was celebrated in his (now former) diocese of Ft. Worth.

Welcome to California, Bishop Vann!

Adult Stem Cell Update: More Amazing News

Check out this amazing video from ABC--well, amazing to people who have not been following the progress of adult stem-cells (or as our long time source for stem-cell news, Don Margolis, refers to them "repair stem-cells"). It's so amazing it's even a little creepy.

While the Obama Administration and the and the abortion-loving Democratic party are chasing the will-o-the-wisp of embryonic stem-cells, hoping for some amazing cure that will, in their minds, justify the 40 million+ murders they have supported since Roe v. Wade, adult stem-cells are continuing their absolutely unprecedented progress.

From the article:


"There's an 80% chance that in five months Bill Weir will be the first person ever to see his cardiac tissue beating outside his body.


Last week Bill visited Dr. Tim Nelson at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota to report on a revolutionary new stem cell treatment that would have sounded like science fiction even five years ago.


Different from the controversial embryonic (Yes, it's morally acceptable and it works-ASP) stem cell treatment, Dr. Nelson's team took a biopsy from Bill's Bicep and are in the process of turning those cells into his own beating cardiac tissue; tissue that will beat at the same rate as the heart in his chest.


And this isn't just for the heart. After the biopsy is taken, doctors are able to wipe the hard drive of the cells and use them to create brain and lung tissue as well.


What this means is that in the future you may be able to go to your doctor and deposit a batch of cells, and if you have a stroke or heart attack later in life they'll be able to use those cells to repair the damage."

Let's hope the government does not get involved and screw things up.


Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

USF UPDATE: Lynn Woolsey, Goodwin Liu to Receive Honorary Degrees at USF Commencement

On May 17-19, the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco will celebrate its spring 2012 commencement exercises. Speeches will be made, honorary degrees will be awarded, and once again the Catholic Church will be abused.

On May 19 the students of USF’s McLaren School of Management will be addressed by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. According to Project Vote Smart, since 1995 Woolsey has not once received anything other than a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood or NARAL. Since 1995 she has not once received a rating other than 100% from the Human Rights Campaign, the most powerful homosexual activist lobbying group in the country.

Particulars of Woolsey's record, who is a nominal Catholic, are not hard to find. In 2003, she voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. In 2007, she co-sponsored the “Stem –Cell Research Act.” The act would have allowed embryonic stem-cell research. It was vetoed by then-President George W. Bush. On May 15, 2008, when the California Supreme Court declared same-sex “marriage” to be legal Woolsey wrote “Like many Californians, I am thrilled by this morning’s decision by the California Supreme Court to overturn the ban on same sex marriage.” Six months later, the people of the state of California overruled the state Supreme Court and re-established the true definition of marriage through Proposition 8. In an article published on the Politico website on November 9, 2009, Woolsey actually encouraged the IRS to restrict the freedom of Catholic Bishops to lobby on political issues: “The IRS is less restrictive about church involvement in efforts to influence legislation than it is about involvement in campaigns and elections. Given the political behavior of USCCB in this case, maybe it shouldn’t be.” USF will present Woolsey with an honorary degree.

Also on May 19, USF’s School of Law will be addressed by Goodwin Liu, associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. Liu’s record has been chronicled extensively in CalCatholic. In 2011, President Obama nominated Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Senate rejected the nomination. At the time Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, described the pro-abortion Liu “the worst of Obama’s nominees at all levels of the federal courts.” This view was widely shared. Life News reported that Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center noted that Liu “…was so left-wing that former ‘White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel initially vetoed’ his candidacy for the Ninth Circuit ‘on the ground that Liu’s left-wing record made him too controversial.” Liu’s defeat did not seem to affect California’s Governor Jerry Brown. In 2011, Brown nominated Liu to the state’s Supreme Court. Liu sailed through the process with no effective statewide opposition. Liu is also a supporter of same-sex “marriage.” On September 1, 2011, the Above the Law blog reported “As a law professor, Liu has backed the rights of same-sex couples to marry, and signed on to legal briefs supporting those rights in a 2008 case that prompted the state Supreme Court to invalidate the state’s previous ban on gay marriage.” USF will present Liu with an honorary degree.

The honoring of such anti-Catholic persons at university commencements is finally meeting some hierarchical opposition. On April 30, Bishop George Murry, SJ of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, instructed Mercy College School of Nursing to rescind its invitation to state representative Bob Hagan, a pro-abortion Democrat. The school had invited Hagan to give its commencement address. Bishop Murry joins Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, who in March asked Anna Maria College to rescind its invitation to Victoria Reggie Kennedy, second wife of the late Ted Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy is pro-abortion. She was scheduled to receive an honorary degree.

That opposition has not yet been expressed in the City by the Bay. To express your opposition and to ask Archbishop George Niederauer to speak out against the conferring of honors upon such open enemies of the Church, please call 415-614-5500.

Correction: In the second to last paragraph I had misidentified Bob Hagan as a member of congress. He is a state representative in Ohio. The post is now corrected.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: "This could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.''

More great adult stem-cell news. This story is from the Telegraph:

'''The results are striking,' said Professor Roberto Bolli, one of the research leaders from the University of Louisville in the US. ''While we do not yet know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that ejection fraction increased and scarring decreased.'

''If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.''

The ground-breaking new treatment involved extracting cardiac stem cells (CSCs) - self-renewing cells that rebuild hearts and arteries - from patients during bypass surgery.
The cells were purified and grown in the laboratory before being injected back into damaged regions of the patients' hearts four months later.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports more good news. Geron is abandoning the field of embryonic stem-cell research:

"The company doing the first government-approved test of embryonic stem cell therapy is discontinuing further stem cell work..."

UPDATE: Hah! The great Wesley Smith on Geron's pullout:

"This is an atom bomb of a story that will have a serious effect on the entire regenerative medical sector. And it should embarrass the critics of President Bush; the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which bragged about its part in funding a scientist involved in the research; and, perhaps most of all, the fawning media that have acted as press agent for both the field generally, and Geron specifically."

And we repeat one of our mantras here at A Shepherd's Voice: "Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

You can read all our adult stem-cell posts here.

Adult Stem-Cell Update: Patient's new Windpipe Grown From Own Stem-Cells

Now for some good medical news. We have not blogged much about adult stem-cell treatments lately because there seem to be so many, but this caught our eye:

"Surgeons working at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden have taken a huge step forward for regenerative medicine by successfully executing the world’s first synthetic organ transplant. The donor-less transplant saved the life of a 36-year-old cancer patient, who is doing well now after having received a new windpipe grown from his own stem cells.

This story is about as international as it gets: The Eritrean patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, was pursuing his doctorate in geology in Iceland when his trachea was consumed by an inoperable tumor that grew so bad that it was actually blocking his breathing. So 3-D scans of his windpipe were sent to scientists at University College London, which crafted a glass scaffold that was a perfect match for Beyene’s trachea and two main bronchi.

The scaffold was in turn was sent to Sweden, where it was soaked in stem cells from Beyene’s own bone marrow. The stem cells took hold and within just two days had filled the scaffold, creating a new trachea that is, biologically speaking, Beyene’s own tissue. A 12-hour operation by an Italian surgeon specializing in trachea operations removed Beyene’s windpipe and all signs of the cancer and then replaced it with the new, lab-grown organ.

That was a month ago. Today, Beyene is recovering well. Because the organ was grown from his own cells, there is no risk of his body rejecting it and no need for the harsh regimen of anti-rejection drugs that usually go hand in hand with an organ transplant."

Praise God! Emphasis above added.

As always, we advise readers to check out the blog of Don Margolis, who has been beating the drum for adult stem-cells (which Don refers to, probably more accurately, as "repair stem cells') for years.

For all of our posts on adult stem-cell research and cures, go here. And we repeat one of our mantras here at A Shepherd's Voice: "Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

h/t Instapundit

Adult Stem-Cell Update: Heart Attack Damage Reversed

You can read the American Heart Association's press release on the treatment here.

From Fierce Biotech Research:

"Writing in the journal Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association, scientists show in a small study that stem cell therapy can reverse heart damage in patients with enlarged hearts due to heart attacks. In addition, the benefits from the stem cell injections appear to be three times better than that offered by current medical treatments, according to a release. Scar tissue decreased and heart function improved, the scientists from the University of Miami said.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Joshua Hare, the study's lead author and director of the UM Medical School's Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, seemed pumped about the heart development.

'That's the Holy Grail, the quest the whole field has been pursuing for close to a decade, and this is evidence we're on the right track,' Hare told the Herald.

A participant in the small eight-person trial, Max Eaton, 68, seconded that emotion. 'I feel very grateful,' Eaton told the Herald. 'Almost certainly, I would be deceased or in much worse shape had I not had the opportunity to be in this program.'"

And would these be Embryonic Stem Cells? Not on your life. Two different times of bone marrow stem-cells. Go here for all of our posts on amazing adult stem-cell treatments.

It's been one of our mantras here at "A Shepherd's Voice: "Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

Readers interested in the latest amazing stem-cell treatments should visit the blog of Don Margolis. He's been on the story for years, and has just about daily updates.

Nancy Pelosi versus the Church (Again)

Updated version.

On February 8, Richard Doerflinger associate director of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, speaking for the Catholic bishops, testified before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee in strong support of H.R. 3 (the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act) and H.R. 358 (the Protect Life Act).

Two days later, on February 10 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) led a conference call which included bloggers and Democratic activists. The subject of the call was the upcoming votes on H.R. 3 and H.R. 358. The conference call was an attempt to rally like-minded persons to oppose the two bills. Greg Sargeant writing in the Washington Post, reported that Pelosi promises a major fight against both bills. Sargent’s headline read “Pelosi Vows Huge Fight With GOP Over Abortion.”

"Nancy Pelosi's extremely blunt assessments of the true motives of Republicans are why her supporters love her and her enemies hate her with equal passion, and on a conference call with bloggers just now, she unleashed a slashing attack on the House GOP's new anti-abortion push that may churn up emotions on both sides.”

While Mr. Sargeant characterized Pelosi’s "blunt assessments" as targeted at Republicans, it would be more accurate to describe them as targeted at Catholics, and especially the Catholic bishops. In the call Pelosi said:

“‘They are at a different philosophical place,’ she said, characterizing their view as: ‘all engagement has to result in a child.’ Pelosi noted that contraception and family planning is ‘not consistent with their belief that it's all about procreation.’"

The Think Progress blog reported Pelosi’s statement slightly differently:

“in a different philosophical place on…all engagements that result in a child. So that’s why homosexuality, that’s why birth control, all these things that are not consistent with their beliefs that are all about procreation.”

That is not a "Republican" position--far from it. The opposition to contraception as well as to abortion is not “Republican” but is a teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Congresswoman Pelosi’s ongoing and well-known dissents from the teaching of the church on abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and natural marriage are no longer properly described as “dissent” but have become outright attacks. She is now doing everything in her considerable power to thwart the Catholic bishops.

Pelosi’s positions have not been unopposed, but at the higher levels of the Church that opposition has mostly taken the form of debate. On December 21, 2009 Pelosi said:

“I practically mourn this difference of opinion (over abortion) because I feel what I was raised to believe is consistent with what I profess, and that we are all endowed with a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And that women should have the opportunity to exercise their free will.”

To which San Francisco’s Archbishop George Niederauer responded:

"While we deeply respect the freedom of our fellow citizens, we nevertheless are profoundly convinced that free will cannot be cited as justification for society to allow moral choices that strike at the most fundamental rights of others. Such a choice is abortion, which constitutes the taking of innocent human life, and cannot be justified by any Catholic notion of freedom."

While Archbishop Niederaur’s response may have been intellectually satisfying, it does not seem to have changed Congressman Pelosi positions one whit. On March 26, 2010 noted canon lawyer and Referendarius of the Apostolic Signatura Dr. Ed Peters wrote:

“Some who believe that Canon 915 is meant to be enforced might yet harbor reservations about actually barring from Communion this pro-abortion Catholic politician or that one, for fear of igniting endless debates about why one does not also bar that pro-abortion Catholic politician or this one. The prospect of being criticized for "imperfectly" applying the law might cause some prelates otherwise inclined to invoke the law to hesitate doing so.

I understand their concern, and have argued elsewhere that enforcement of Canon 915 is not as simple as some seem to believe. But, lest the perfect become the enemy of the good, I am convinced that one has to start what one might call the 'national application' of Canon 915 somewhere, and that the best case to start with is that of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi…. If her prolonged public conduct does not qualify as obstinent perseverance in manifest grave sin, then, in all sincerity, I must admit to not knowing what would constitute obstinent perseverance in manifest grave sin."

Emphasis in original.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

Most Pro-Abortion President We've Ever Had

Bishop Thomas Tobin is bishop of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island. Here are some of his comments on the president's State of the Union address:

...I watched Mr. Obama,…and reflected on his speech, I sensed there was something missing; there was something that left me cold, unimpressed and unmoved. And suddenly it became clear. The problem, at least for me, is that President Obama’s persistent and willful promotion of abortion renders his compassionate gestures and soaring rhetoric completely disingenuous. “O come on, Bishop Tobin,” I hear you say. “Abortion’s not the only moral issue in the world.” Correct, I respond. Abortion’s not the only moral issue in the world but it is the most important. And, I confess, abortion policy is the prism through which I view everything this president says and does. Is there any longer any doubt that Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion president we’ve ever had?

President Obama has enthusiastically supported the Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade that has allowed virtually unrestricted access to abortion in our nation and has resulted in approximately 50 million deaths since 1973. President Obama has consistently surrounded himself with pro-abortion advisors, and has appointed pro-abortion politicians to key positions in the federal government, including his two nominees for the Supreme Court.

President Obama has promulgated policies, including the overturn of the Mexico City Policy (within the first few hours of his presidency) that requires taxpayer monies to provide abortions around the world. Similarly he signed an executive order that forces taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research; he signed a bill that overturned the 13-year-long ban of abortion funding in the nation’s capital; and he directed the passage of health care legislation that opens the door to federal funding of abortions and could eventually limit the freedom of religion for individuals and institutions who find abortion morally repugnant.

President Obama has made abortion a key foreign policy issue, pressuring nations to accept abortion policies; he’s supported several pro-abortion initiatives of the United Nations; and he’s appointed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Secretary Clinton has had a consistent pro-abortion record and in her international travels has promoted abortion as a human right.
The full accounting of President Obama’s track record on abortion goes on for eight typed pages, a very sad and discouraging litany. The net effect, though, is that President Obama’s shameful record on abortion leaves his touching tribute and appeal to goodness in Tucson – and other expressions of compassion – sterile and meaningless. As he stood on the stage in Tucson, he was a prophet without credentials; his speech, a song without a soul.

Perhaps the president’s most moving rhetoric was that about Christina Taylor Green, the precious nine-year-old slain in the barrage of bullets. As a father of two beautiful daughters himself, the president’s words were surely personal and sincere. Of this child he said: “In Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic . . . So deserving of our love.”

But I can’t help but ask, respectfully, “Mr. President, why can’t you see our other children – so curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic, and so deserving of our love – in all of the unborn children who didn’t live because of our nation’s embrace of the abortion option?”
And in one of the most dramatic moments of his speech, Mr. Obama announced that the wounded congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, opened her eyes for the first time just after he’d completed his visit to her. “A miracle” some proclaimed, and certainly a welcome sign of recovery at which we all rejoice.

But I can’t help but wonder how many tiny eyes will never open, will never see the light of day, because of this president’s shortsighted and zealous promotion of abortion. It’s truly tragic that our president – for whose safety and well-being we pray all the time and who has demonstrated an impressive ability to inspire other people – is unable to see the deadly consequences of his abortion agenda. Perhaps we need another miracle, to open his eyes, that he might see and understand how wrong abortion is, how sinful it is, how violent it is, and how it’s destroying the life of our nation.

Catholic Herald, R.I.

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: HIV-Postive Man Cured by Transplant

We just can't keep up with all the great adult stem-cell news. The latest: an HIV-postive man in Berlin has been cured. From Fox News:

"Doctors believe a 42-year-old man was cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant in 2007, the medical journal Blood reported.

Timothy Ray Brown, an HIV-positive American living in Germany, had leukemia and was undergoing chemotherapy, when he received a transplant of stem cells from a donor carrying a rare, inherited gene mutation associated with a reduced risk HIV.

The transplant appeared to wipe out both diseases, giving hope to doctors. Brown’s case was published in a February 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"The patient is fine," Dr. Gero Hutter, who treated Brown, of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany said in 2009. "Today, two years after his transplantation, he is still without any signs of HIV disease and without antiretroviral medication."

We repeat what has been one of our mantras here at "A Shepherd's Voice" ever since Prop 71 in California passed:

"Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

Meanwhile, our President funds this useless and immoral embryonic reasearch.

For all of our stem -cell posts, go here, and, as always, check out the blog of Don Margolis for the latest adult stem-cell (or as Don calls them "repair stem cell") news.

Adult Stem Cell UPDATE: Burns Treated, Leukemia Patient Healed

We have not been following the amazing adult stem-cell progess as much as we should lately. Here are two MORE amazing stories:

From KSL in Salt Lake City:

Stem cell spray heals burns

A spray solution of a patient's own stem cells is healing their severe burns. So far, early experiments under a University of Utah pilot project are showing some remarkable results.
What was once a serious burn on Kaye Adkins foot is healing nicely now because of a topical spray. With diabetes as a complication, the small but open wound had not healed after weeks of failed treatments.

Dr. Amalia Cochran with the university's Burn Care Center says, "With a wound that is open for several months, as this patient suffered prior to seeing us in our burn clinic, we worry about a pretty heavy bacterial load there."

But enter the evolutionary world of regenerative medicine, using almost a bedside stem cell technique that takes only about 15 minutes."

_____________________________________________________

And from LifeSiteNews:

Amazing first: leukemia patient completely cured with cord blood stem cells

"BERLIN, November 26, 2010 - Doctors associated with the German umbilical cord blood bank Vita 34 say that they have cured a child’s leukemia completely using an infusion of stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

The procedure was reportedly performed in 2005 on a four-year-old girl whose chemotherapy treatment had failed and who had a prognosis of only three months to live. The procedure was possible because the parents had decided to preserve their child’s umbilical cord blood at the time of birth.

After continuous monitoring of the child for five years now, with no sign of leukemia cells in her blood, doctors say that they have confirmed that the treatment worked."

As our friend Don Margolis often says, adult stem-cells are the greatest medicine in the history of man. It's tragic that our current President, for ideological reasons, chooses to spend his efforts on immoral and pointless Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

For a rundown of our posts on this subject, click here. And you can always visit our friend Don Margolis, whom we have called "The Best Stem Cell Blog" for more. Don follows all the latest adult stem-cell news, and has made it his life's work. God bless him!

Pro-Life Catholic Scores Major Upset in Delaware

Christine O'Donnell has won a convincing 53-47 victory against Congressman Mike Castle in the state's Republican Senate primary. Mr. Castle, who mostly supports abortion and always supports funding embryonic stem-cell research, has been in the U.S. Congress since 1993. O'Donnell will be battling Democrat Chris Coons, who ran unopposed, for Vice President Biden's Senate seat.

How nice it would be to have the pro-life Catholic O'Donnell replacing the Party of Death's "Catholic" Joe Biden!

She trails Mr. Coons, but the Washington Post's political blog said an O'Donnell primary victory was "considered a political impossibility a month ago," too--and remember the "impossible" candidacy of Senator Scott Brown?

Fox News reports:

"A lot of people have already said that we can't win the general election," O'Donnell said in her victory speech, joining the crowd in a "yes we can" chant. "It is those same so-called experts who said we had no chance of winning the primary."

Here's a link to her website, which is currently down (probably overwhelmed with traffic):

http://christine2010.com/

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney

"The existence of a providential God, objective truth, moral duty and the right to life itself.”

The Catholic News Agency reports a wonderful Fourth of July column by the young Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan:

"The archbishop then spoke of the false contemporary understanding of freedom “as the right to do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, however we want, with whomever we want.” Our culture has lost the true understanding of freedom as “the liberty to do what we ought,” he said.

He observed the modern trend of “freeing” oneself from “any sense of obedience to God, His revelation and the basic code of right and wrong He has engraved upon the human heart.”

This false understanding of freedom has devastating consequences, he continued. “The Ten Commandments become a list of suggestions, the Eight Beatitudes a set of nice ideas, the Bible mere literature, the Church unnecessary, religion a crutch for the unenlightened, objective truth an outmoded oppression.”

His Excellency then pointed out some of the consequences:

"By adopting this distorted mindset, we elevate ourselves to the level of gods, the archbishop said. This is evident in today's culture, which claims dominion over life in matters such as abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, he explained. Focused on consumption and convenience, the culture presumes to re-define marriage and family as it sees fit, revels in violence in its movies and music and resorts to war and terrorism without regard to the demands of morality.

This phenomenon is “curious,”Archbishop Dolan said, because the very culture declaring itself independent of God and morality has become “terribly dependent” on “money, insurance, gas, weapons, security systems or even upon alcohol, pornography, lust, gambling and drugs.”

Adult Stem-Cell UPDATE: The Blind can Now See With Their Own Stem-Cells!

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! From LifeSiteNews:

"For individuals blinded by chemical burns, the ever advancing field of adult stem-cell research has provided yet another astonishing cure – giving them sight through their own stem cells.

Italian researchers have reported developing a very successful therapy to cure those who were either blinded, or whose vision was severely impaired, thanks to chemical burns to their corneas. Such burns can come about through handling everything from toxic cleaning substances at home to heavy-duty chemicals at work....

In a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists treated 107 eyes of 106 patients with stem cells derived from the limbus, the rim around the cornea, where stem cells are naturally produced by the body to do repairs on the cornea.

The researchers derived the stem cells from a patient’s healthy eye, and then encouraged them to multiply. Once they had enough stem cells, they removed the scar tissue over the bad eye, and then grafted the stem cells on over the site of the cornea, which then began to generate new corneal tissues.

After 12-24 months had passed, these grafts were then followed up by corrective surgeries.

One patient had severe alkali burns on both his eyes from 1948. Researchers, however, were able to adapt and derive limbal stem-cell cultures with biopsied tissue taken from the patient’s left eye. The therapy managed to successfully restore both corneal surfaces, transitioning the man from blindness to having an almost normal, combined vision of close to 20/30. Follow-ups after two and five years showed that both eyes were stable after the treatment.

In all, the treatment had a 76.6 percent success rate, sustained over the past decade. The researchers note that all their failure cases occurred within the first year of treatment. In all 82 of 107 eyes had successful cures, with partial success in 14 others.

"They were incredibly happy. Some said it was a miracle," one of the study leaders, Graziella Pellegrini of the University of Modena's Center for Regenerative Medicine in Italy, told the Associated Press. "It was not a miracle. It was simply a technique."

The Family Research Council blog has more, including ABC News video about the case. We also repeat what has become one of our mantras at "A Shepherd's Voice" ever since Prop 71 in California passed:

"Are California voters having second thoughts yet about shelling out $3 billion + for immoral & unproven embryonic stem cell research, which has yet to show a single cure, while adult stem cells are curing people left and right?"

We must point out it was idiots in the press (like ABC News) that were foursquare behind ESCR, and painted those of us opposed to it as anti-science bigots.

Our friend Don Margolis has been beating the adult stem-cell drum (he refers to them as "repair stem-cells") for years, calling them the greatest medicine ever known to mankind, and it looks like he is right. Visit his website: http://donmargolis.com/blog/ and check out the list of diseases and conditions being treated with adult stem-cells.