Priests in our diocese are encouraged to take study weeks in addition to an annual retreat. This week I am spending three days in Dallas at a workshop for bishops sponsored by the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Knights of Columbus. The overall topic is "Urged on by Christ: Catholic Health Care in Tension with Contemporary Culture." Topics having to do with the beginning and end of human life will dominate the presentations and discussions at this workshop. Some of the best Catholic minds in these and related fields will assist us as we bishops seek to grasp some of the moral and ethical issues surrounding these challenges in a culture that today listens little and heeds less a Catholic point of view.
Here in our diocese, we have a very well developed Catholic health care system. Five acute care hospitals, one — St. Francis — specializing in heart care, and the other four are general hospitals, two of which offer specialized oncology clinics in collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering. These are the mainstay and centerpieces of a commitment to care for the sick that makes our diocese a leader in quality health care following the example of Jesus, the divine healer.
Along with these hospitals, we have nursing homes and a specialized home for challenged youngsters called Maryhaven. We provide home health care through a visiting nurses program and medicines through a special program for prescription drugs and related medical items. Thanks to your generosity in the Catholic Ministries Appeal, we have a whole system of chaplains at all the hospitals across Long Island, Catholic or not, so that we can offer spiritual help and guidance to the sick wherever they are being treated. In short, we do our best to be the heart and hands of the Lord to help the sick and bring aid to their families in times of need.
This is not an easy thing to do. Health care, as we all know, is a challenging business and is regulated by a host of agencies and beset with a myriad of government regulations. In addition, the delivery of health care follows the predominant mores and is subject to pressures from special interest groups, some of whom take positions antithetical to what we believe and teach. One of the reasons I believe it is so important for us to do our best to maintain Catholic health care is to ensure that we have a place at the table. If we are not engaged in delivering quality care to patients, it is that much more difficult to get a hearing for a Catholic ethical perspective in what are literally life and death issues.
Take one significant example, political ads on television where famous actors and public personalities have taken up the cause of embryonic stem cell research. Listening to their pitch, one would think that embryonic stem cells will one day offer a cure for everything except the common cold. When challenged, they have to admit that they are making not a scientific statement but an act of blind faith. When forced to expand on their position, they have to admit that there is only a potential that embryonic stem cells will yield us the means to treat or even prevent such diseases as Parkinson's and others. When someone, such as the Catholic Church, objects to the method of obtaining stem cells, a method that means engendering human embryos and then discarding the human embryo into the trash can, such persons and institutions like the Catholic Church are charged with being "opposed to stem cell research." That means we are opposed to using scientific research to cure disease.
Let me state it quite simply and unequivocally.
FACT ONE: The Catholic Church is in favor of stem cell research. We are in favor of all legitimate research that can help treat and/or cure disease. The Catholic Church is opposed to engendering human embryos to obtain stem cells and then throwing the human embryo into the trash can. That is blatant and cynical manipulation of a human embryo. It is a callous disregard for what is a human living organism.
FACT TWO: Despite the fact that there are stem cell lines from human embryos being used for experimentation, there has not yet been one person who has been treated or cured of any disease through the use of embryonic stem cells.
FACT THREE: There are stem cells taken legitimately from adults that today are being used to treat disease. These do not involve the destruction of human embryos. Such stem cells, taken from adults, can come from umbilical cords and from other parts of the human body, including bone marrow, that do not involve destruction of embryos. These stem cells have been used and are being used successfully in treating disease even as I write this. Why is there such hype from the worlds of cinema and politics for embryonic stem cell research when it has only a possibility for treatment when we already have stem cells that are not from embryos and are actually treating diseases?
May I offer a parallel? Over 100 years ago, the "robber barons" made millions of dollars exploiting the countryside of our state, polluting the Hudson River, causing fish to disappear, decimating our forests, all to make money. Today an environmentally more sensitive community would not allow that to happen. Yet today, with the prospect of making money dangling in front of the eyes of all kinds of people, we are willing to let certain groups exploit human life and destroy human life in another act of callousness toward humanity. Could it be that the next century will look on the production and destruction of human embryos to make money as we look on the destruction of our environment by the robber barons over 100 years ago?
