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The Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Savannah
http://www.diosav.org
Vol. 82, No. 16 Thursday, April 18, 2002
$.75 per issue
Bush, other cloning opponents rally
forces to push for ban
By Patricia Zapor
Washington (cns)
resident Bush raised the volume on support
for legislation to ban all forms of human
cloning research with an April 10 White House
event rallying some of the bill’s most prominent
backers.
“Allowing cloning would be taking a signifi
cant step toward a society in which human
beings are grown for spare body parts and chil
dren are engineered to custom specifications,”
Bush said, “and that’s not acceptable.”
The Senate is expected to take up legislation
on human cloning before it recesses for the sum
mer. The House passed a bill last July that
would ban all research in human cloning.
Bush said he would firmly oppose all types of
cloning research involving human embryos. One
bill pending action in the Senate would prohibit
research in cloning for reproductive purposes,
but would permit research on cloned human
embryos which are destroyed after stem cells
have been extracted. The president said that ver
sion is unacceptable.
The White House event followed a lobbying
rally at the Capitol, at which several hundred
people from religious, medical and political
backgrounds heard activists explaining the dis
tinction between the types of cloning and why
they believe all forms of human cloning research
are wrong.
Participants in the events included actresses
Margaret Colin and Patricia Heaton, who are
honorary co-chairs of Feminists for Life, Senate
bill co-sponsors Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.,
and Mary Landrieu, D-La.; representatives of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, includ
ing Gail Quinn, head of the U.S. bishops’
Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, and Richard
Doerflinger, the secretariat’s associate director
for policy development; and Bishop Fabian W.
Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb.
Others in attendance included medical
researchers and several people with disabilities
who took issue with those who argue that
cloning research could help them.
“Nobody understands better than I the desire
to find a cure,” said Joni Eareckson Tada, a
quadriplegic who became famous in part for her
artwork painted by using a brush held in her
mouth. In the 35 years since she became para
lyzed because of a diving accident, her perspec
tive about her situation has tempered, she said.
(Continued on page 5)
President George W. Bush pushes for the
Senate to pass a ban on human cloning April
10. Catholic representatives were on hand to
support his position as the president made the
remarks from the East Room of the White
House.
Broad efforts of bishops to fight clergy sex abuse not widely known
By Jerry Filteau
Washington (cns)
ark Chopko said he gets the
same question about clergy
sex abuse of minors over and over
these days—in phone calls, in e-
mails and from people who simply
stop him on the street because they
recognize him from television—
“Why haven’t the bishops done
anything?”
Chopko, who has worked with
bishops nationwide on the issue for
20 years as general counsel of the
U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, said there is a whole
library of resources, expert reports
and information built up over that
time in the bishops’ efforts to deal
with clergy sex abuse.
“Unfortunately, it’s a secret to
many Catholics, and I don’t know
why that is.”
“I’ve been at this since the
Gilbert Gauthe case,” he said,
referring to the first nationally pub
licized case of priestly pedophilia, a
Louisiana priest suspended in 1983
for molesting small boys and sen
tenced to 20 years in prison for his
crimes in 1985. The case led to
more than a dozen lawsuits against
the church and financial settlements
with victims that totaled several
million dollars.
It also marked the start of a
national effort by the bishops to
prevent and respond to sexual
abuse of children, especially within
the church.
In an interview with Catholic
News Service, Chopko highlighted
some of the bishops’ efforts—start
ing with discussion sessions with
experts at national meetings in the
1980s. Those efforts included the
first written policies in many dioce
ses in the ‘80s and the adoption of
five core principles in 1992 as the
framework for all such policies—
after which many dioceses revised
their policies and procedures to
make them more effective.
In 1993 the bishops formed an Ad
Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse.
Over the next four years the com
mittee developed and discussed
with the bishops extensive
resources for all dioceses on every
thing from assisting victims and
families therapeutically and pas-
torally to abuse prevention pro
grams, from initial handling and
investigation of allegations to
removal, evaluation and treatment
of priests found to have engaged in
misconduct.
(Continued on page 4)
Father Prendergast:
a “cheerful giver”
—page 6
Hispanic Ministry
in Douglas
—page 7
Hardison named
Macon’s Scholar Athlete
—page 12