Month: August 2019

Washington D.C., Aug 2, 2019 / 12:54 pm (CNA).- This story is the second part of a two-part series about how one victim of sexual abuse found healing. The first part was published Aug. 1.

When Michael* was 15 years old, he was abused by a priest at hi… […]

Washington D.C., Aug 2, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The Trump administration added another high-ranking Iranian official this week to its list of sanctions against Iran, inviting continued discussion about the morality of lethal and non-lethal me… […]

Washington D.C., Aug 2, 2019 / 10:45 am (CNA).- The Japanese government is expected to approve funding for a research project, led by stem cell scientist Hiromitsu Nakauchi, to use stem cells to create animal embryos that contain human cells.

Father Tad Pacholczyk, Director of Education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that the research involves the implantation of human cells, typically human stem cells, into non-human animal embryos, such as embryos from pigs and sheep, for the purposes of growing human hearts, kidneys, and other organs in those animals.

“These organs would be generated for potential use in organ transplantation situations and to alleviate organ shortages…which could be a very helpful development for many people currently on the waitlist for an organ,” Pacholczyk explained.

“The aim is to make one species grow an organ of the other, rather than seeking to somehow ‘combine’ two species into a new, third species.”

That being said, however, Pacholczyk warned that if such research must be done, it should not include the creation or destruction of human embryos.

In general, he said, research destructive of human embryos is always morally unacceptable, because it involves “the purposeful destruction of younger humans to serve the interests of older and more wealthy humans.”

The Pontifical Academy for Life stated its 2000 Declaration on the production and the scientific and therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cells that “on the basis of a complete biological analysis, the living human embryo is – from the moment of the union of the gametes – a human subject with a well-defined identity,” and that as “a human individual it has the right to its own life; and therefore every intervention which is not in favor of the embryo is an act which violates that right.”

These will not be the first experiments done involving human-animal hybrid embryos, but it is the first to receive official support from a government. The National Institutes of Health in the US has had a moratorium on funding such work since 2015, according to Nature.

Nakauchi is the director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tokyo and team leader at Stanford’s Nakauchi Lab. He is still awaiting final approval from the Japanese government to begin his research.

Nakauchi told Tech Explorist that he plans to inject animal embryos, which have been engineered to lack a specific organ such as the pancreas, with human stem cells in order to see if they can grow the missing organ using those cells.

Rather than embryonic stem cells, Pacholczyk said, the researchers should consider using adult stem cells— typically harvested from the bone marrow consenting adults— or what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, which are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state.

“These kinds of experiments require very careful ethical discernment, and the scientific community, with ethical input from the Church and appropriate outside regulatory control, must adhere to clear moral lines, meaning they need to agree that there are practices they will not do,” Pacholczyk said.

“This kind of research has the potential to be done in an ethical way, and to produce solid scientific advances, or in various unethical ways and to result in harmful and controversial scientific practices.”

Japanese scientists were previously forbidden from allowing human cells to grow within other animals past a 14-day period, but in March the government relaxed the rules on embryonic stem-cell research aimed at creating human-animal hybrids, allowing such creations to be brought to term.

Bioethicists have raised the possibility that human cells might stray beyond development of the targeted organ, travel to the developing animal’s brain and potentially affect its cognition, Nature reports.

To that end, Pacholczyk said that for any chimeras— third, hybrid animals— produced, care must be exercised to avoid the replication of major pillars of human identity in animals, such as the brain system.

In addition, chimeras which produce human sperm or human eggs should never be generated, he said, to avoid the production of the basic building blocks of human reproduction.

The Japanese scientist plans to begin with mice and rats, experimenting for two years, and said it is his hope to eventually apply for government approval to grow human-pig hybrid embryos for up to 70 days.

“Human cells generally do not grow very well in pigs or sheep, likely due [to] the evolutionary distance between us and them, so additional ‘tricks’ and genetic manipulations may be needed to help the human cells grow,” Pacholczyk commented.

“There is also a chance of transmitting new viruses from, say, pigs into the human organs that the pigs are growing, so this will have to be carefully addressed to be sure that if such organs were ever used in transplants, humans would not become susceptible to new infections.”

In the US, the NIH proposed in 2016 federal funding of projects to possibly create a human-animal hybrid, prompting serious moral and legal concerns from Catholic ethicists.

In comments submitted to NIH at the time, the National Catholic Bioethics Center stated that using human embryonic stem cells for research is wrong because “human beings at these vulnerable stages must be safeguarded, not exploited, in both clinical and research settings.”

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New York City, N.Y., Aug 2, 2019 / 03:18 am (CNA).- Today’s feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Porziuncola and its associated indulgence is a way to focus on the importance of Mary and the Franciscan tradition in the Church, said one friar.

The Aug. 2 feast is found in the Franciscan tradition, and marks the dedication of the parish church, called Porziuncola or “little portion,” which is one of those Italy’s St. Francis of Assisi rebuilt in obedience to Christ’s command to “rebuild my church.”

“The Porziuncola is at the heart of the Franciscan journey,” Father David Convertino, the development director for the Holy Name Province of the Observant Franciscans, told CNA.

“For Francis, it was his most beloved place. He lived near it with the early followers … and he loved the Porziuncola, as it was part of his devotion to Our Lady.”

The Catholic Church teaches that after a sin is forgiven, an unhealthy attachment to created things still remains. Indulgences remove that unhealthy attachment, purifying the soul so that it is more fit to enter heaven. Indulgences are either plenary (full) or partial.

A plenary indulgence also requires that the individual be in the state of grace and have complete detachment from sin. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after the indulgenced act.

Anyone who visits a Catholic church with the intention of honoring Our Lady of the Angels and recites the Creed, the Our Father, and prays for the Pope’s intentions, may receive a plenary indulgence on Aug. 2.

“Any kind of a prayer form that helps people come closer to God is obviously a good prayer form, and certainly an indulgence is one way,” Fr. Convertino said.

“It helps us focus on, in this case, the meaning of the Porziuncola and the Franciscan tradition, how it’s situated in the greater idea of the Church.”
 

Porziuncola located inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi. Credit: emmav674 via Flickr (CC BY_NC_SA 2.0)

The Porziuncola was built in honor of Our Lady of the Angels in the fourth century, and by St. Francis’ time had fallen into disrepair. The church, which was then located just outside of Assisi, became the “motherhouse” of the Franciscan orders.

“Although Francis realized that the kingdom of heaven is found in every dwelling on earth … he had learned nevertheless that the church of Saint Mary at Portiuncula was filled with more abundant grace and visited more frequently by heavenly spirits,” says the life of St. Francis written by Friar Thomas of Celano, read today by Franciscans.

“Consequently he used to say to his friars: ‘See to it, my sons, that you never leave this place. If you are driven out by one door return by the other for this is truly a holy place and God’s dwelling.’”

Fr. Convertino added that the Porziuncola “was the place he chose to lie next to on his deathbed, and at that time of course you could have looked up to the city of Assisi, which he also loved so well.”

The Porziuncola, a rather small chapel, is now located inside a large basilica which was built around it, to enclose and protect it.

“You have this large basilica built over this teeny tiny little chapel,” Fr. Convertino reflected. “If that chapel wasn’t there then the basilica wouldn’t be there, but if the basilica wasn’t there, the chapel probably wouldn’t be there either, given 800 years of war, weather, and turmoil.”

For Fr. Convertino, the duality of the big church and the little church is a reflection of the relationship between the world-wide Catholic Church and the smaller communities which make it up.

“We feel the Franciscans kind of convey, we’re the ones at the heart of the Church, the little church there.”

He said that each time he visits Assisi, the “experience” of the Porziuncola is “compounded more and more,” and added that “it’s such a magnificent place, and the friars there are wonderful.”

Fr. Convertino also discussed the fresco now painted around the entrance of the Porziuncola, which shows St. Francis, together with some of his followers, receiving the indulgence from Christ and Our Lady.

“The idea behind the story is that Francis is asking Jesus for a Porziuncola indulgence, and Jesus is saying to Francis, ‘Well, you really better ask Mary, ask my mother.’”

This article was originally published Aug. 2, 2013.

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Washington D.C., Aug 1, 2019 / 05:28 pm (CNA).- When the U.S. Supreme Court mandated legal recognition of same-sex marriage in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, the majority opinion argued that doing so “would pose no risk of harm” to… […]

Washington D.C., Aug 1, 2019 / 03:54 pm (CNA).- The Senate confirmed a slew of judicial nominees and passed a budget deal this week, drawing praise from pro-lifers.

“We’d heard that our Democratic colleagues across the Capitol were clamori… […]