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Official Newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Savannah
http://www.diosav.org
Vol. 81, No. 42 Thursday, November 29, 2001
$.75 per issue
Vatican condemns cloning of human embryo
By John Norton
Vatican City (CNS)
he Vatican condemned the cloning of human
embryos by U.S. scientists, rejecting claims
that the research produced simple cells and not
human individuals. Despite the scientists’ stated
humanitarian aims, the research represents a new
form of discrimination against defenseless peo
ple, the Vatican said in a November 26 statement.
Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology in
Worcester, Massachusetts., announced November
25 in the online journal E-Biomed: The Journal
of Regenerative Medicine that they had cloned
the first human embryo.
The researchers said they would use the tech
nique, known as therapeutic cloning, to develop
genetically compatible replacement cells for
patients with illnesses like diabetes and
Parkinson’s—not human clones.
But the Vatican, noting that the scientists
referred to what they produced as an “early
embryo,” rejected the claim that no human had
been cloned. It is “beyond doubt, as indicated by
the researchers themselves, that here we find
ourselves before human embryos and not cells,
as some would have (people) believe,” the
Vatican said.
The Vatican said the determination of when
human life begins cannot be fixed by convention
to a certain stage of embryonic development, but
instead was found “in the first instant of exis
tence of the embryo itself.”
Though in this case recognizing human life
was more difficult because researchers created
the embryo in a “dis-human” way—without
uniting sperm and egg—the resultant being had
the same dignity as any other human life, the
Vatican said.
The scientists’ justification on the grounds of
fighting illness “sanctions a true and proper dis
crimination among human beings based on
measuring the time of their development—so an
embryo is worth less than a fetus, a fetus less
than a child, a child less than an adult,” it said.
This overturns “the moral imperative that
instead imposes maximum care and maximum
respect precisely for those who are not in a con
dition to defend or manifest their intrinsic digni
ty,” the Vatican said.
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville,
Illinois, president of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, urged a federal ban on human
cloning without delay. “Human cloning violates
fundamental ethical and moral norms and is to be
condemned unequivocally,” he said in a
November 27 statement. “Human cloning does
not treat any disease but turns human reproduc
tion into a manufacturing process,” he said.
Thousands participate in protest march at Army school
By Liz Quirin
Columbus, GA (CNS)
river of people—almost 10,000—
streamed into Columbus during the
November 16-18 weekend to participate
in the 12th annual School of the Americas
Watch peaceful protest rally and march
against the U.S. Army school at nearby
Fort Benning.
The crowd called for closing the school,
formerly known as the School of the
Americas and now named the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. It trains military personnel
from Latin American countries.
According to SOA Watch, graduates of
the school have been implicated in mur
der and torture in their own countries,
including El Salvador, Guatemala and
Colombia. The school’s commandant,
Col, Richard Downie, said the school has
changed since it was closed and reopened
under its new name January 17. Its 35
classes were reduced to 24 and human
rights was introduced as a topic in all of
them. The human rights element is taught
in the context of international law by mil
itary officers, some from different coun
tries, he said.
Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois,
founder of SOA Watch, said the school
may have a new name “but it’s still about
guns; it’s still about combat; it’s still
about soldiers we train with U.S. taxpayer
money, who go back to their home coun
tries—El Salvador, Guatemala,
Colombia—and cause a lot of terror, suf
fering and death.”
He said, “We are here, thousands of us
from around the country—we are stu
dents, veterans, senior citizens, people of
faith, people of conscience, parents with
their children—we are here to keep alive
the memory of thousands in Latin
America who have been the victims of
violence of soldiers trained at Fort
Benning, Ga.”
Father Bourgeois and a growing number
of protesters have gathered for the past 11
years for the event. But this year many,
including Columbus’ mayor and City
Council and the priests of the Columbus
deanery, questioned whether the demon
stration ought to be canceled because of
the September 11 terrorist attacks against
(Continued on page 11)
Bill McNulty of Long Island, New York marches in the annu
al protest at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the
Americas, at Fort Benning in Columbus, November 18.
Bishop’s servers in the
1940s
—page 3
Brunswick school,
parish highlighted
—pages 6-7
Seminarians installed
as Lector, Acolytes
—page 12