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A Win and a Loss
Score one for life! Voters in New Jersey defeated a proposal that would have authorized $450 million in bonds for stem-cell research projects.
The Catholic bishops in five New Jersey dioceses had urged rejection of Public Question 2 and launched an educational campaign to help Catholic voters distinguish between adult stem-cell research, which the Church supports, and stem-cell research involving the destruction of human embryos, which the Church strongly opposes.
The New Jersey bill would have provided funding for embryonic stem cells as well as research on adult stem cells. The better course would be to limit the research to only adult stem cells, which already have a proven record of bearing some success.
As Newark’s Archbishop John Myers said, “Our hope is that all funding would be devoted to adult stem cells because of the moral dilemma that embryonic stem-cell research causes,” and he further urged Catholics to “let their elected representatives know that, if they empower our state to enter into financing stem-cell research, New Jersey must concentrate its efforts on research that produces true benefits instead of another series of promises.”
After voters rejected the bond question, 53% to 47%, Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, told Catholic News Service, “The people have spoken and we are pleased that our message was understood.”
Congratulations to the Conference for clarifying the issues and presenting them in a cogent format.
While we rejoice over the vote in New Jersey, we wonder what was going on in Utah where voters repealed a school vouchers program. The Utah vouchers law, approved by the Utah Legislature and governor but repealed Nov. 6 by a 62% to 38% margin, would have provided tuition vouchers ranging from $500 to $3,000 for each new student enrolled in a private school in the state. Opponents said the plan, which would have been available to all students regardless of family income, would weaken public schools.
Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City said he was disappointed in the vote since the vouchers plan “would have been a real win for both public and private schools.”
We believe that vouchers are good public policy and are good for our children. But it seems that we have to do a better job educating the public to their benefits and, of course, combatting the public teachers’ union, which continues to be the main obstacle in the fight for justice.
According to a study by Utah State University, the proposed vouchers program would have saved public schools nearly $1 billion over 13 years. It also noted that Catholic schools gave more than $4.8 million in tuition assistance to families during the last school year
Responsible Political Action
Meeting in Baltimore this past week, the U.S. bishops considered a document that admitted “Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and too few candidates fully share the Church’s comprehensive commitment to the dignity of the human person.”
“As Catholics, we should be guided more by our moral convictions than by our attachment to a political party or interest group,” the draft document says. “When necessary, our participation should help transform the party to which we belong; we should not let the party transform us in such a way that we neglect or deny fundamental moral truths.”
The document rejects politics based on “powerful interests, partisan attacks, sound bites and media hype” and calls instead for “a different kind of political engagement.”
That engagement must be “shaped by the moral convictions of well-formed consciences and focused on the dignity of every human being, the pursuit of the common good and the protection of the weak and vulnerable,” the document says.
The Church in Brooklyn and Queens can be particularly proud that it was Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio who guided the document through numerous drafts and a consultation process that included several committees. Bishop DiMarzio introduced “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility From the Catholic Bishops of the United States” on the first day of the bishops' fall general meeting in Baltimore.
He said the document was “a challenge to politics as usual” and “not a disguised voters' guide.”
Although the draft document outlines a wide variety of policy positions taken by the bishops on domestic and international issues, it makes clear that not all issues carry equal importance.
“There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society, because they are always incompatible with love of God and neighbor,” the document says, citing in particular abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, stem-cell research involving the destruction of human embryos and “violations of human dignity such as genocide, torture, racism and other unjust discrimination, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war.”
That list is a good litmus test for us as Catholics as we examine our own political consciences and examine the way we vote.
The best way to participate in the political system is to be aware and involved in the issues before local and federal governments. To do this, we recommend logging on to www.nyscatholic.org for the latest on what’s happening in Albany and Washington. At that site, you can join the political action network which gives Catholics a greater voice in government.
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