Card. Keith O'Brien anti-medical knowledge advances?

Scott2006 · Card. Keith O'Brien anti-medical knowledge advances?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7308224.stm

The leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland has urged the prime minister to rethink "monstrous" plans to allow hybrid human-animal embryos.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien will use his Easter Sunday sermon to launch a attack on the government's proposals.

He will also call on Gordon Brown to allow Labour MPs a free vote on the issue at Westminster.

Downing Street did not respond directly to the cardinal's attack, saying Mr Brown had already made his views clear.

The prime minister has said the bill would improve research into many illnesses.

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It seems as if certain church men are so out of touch with reality - it is scary - they speak as if they have all moral authority to hold back legitimate and ethical investigations into the unknown workings of fatal diseases and are glorying in ignorance.

The attitudes of this old man who speaks for one branch of one religion in a world where many tens of thousands of religions have existed is backward looking and simplistically thinking.

The work done by genetic scientists is needed and should be encouraged.

Knowledge and scientific advances do not stop at artificial national borders
and the benefits could easily be enjoyed elsewhere in the world, where preposterious concerns can be quickly demolished by the expectation of new industries to exploit these advances and the allievation of suffering that would result.

The Catholic Church is against anything which would end whole groups of peoples suffering. Their business is in fictitious miracles to end suffering rather than explanations in rational discourse.

To say the Earth moves and is not the centre of the universe would have had you condemned to death by the holy willies holders of his office a mere 450 years ago.

It is still 2008 in his calendar and not 1558, isn't it?

Aventinian · Re: Card. Keith O'Brien anti-medical knowledge advances?

Scott2006

Aventinian: Cardinal Keith O'Brien is not speaking as an individual but as a leader of a religious group and using his position to put pressure on cabinet ministers to follow his lead.

Real advances in the quality of life has been achieved through medical investigation. Religious persecution and burning people at the stake for daring to believe that there is more truth to be gained from education and applied learning than various second hand tales and fictitious accounts of the lives of a few men 20 centuries ago is unfortuately an ongoing battle.

By the way, a religion that explains nothing of how the world actually works is worse than childish - it is obscene.

Aventinian

Lord Pitsligo

Scott2006

Aventinian seems to be on the side of Religion in a spectrum which has science at the other end. Science defines the spectrum it exists at every level of rational thought, while religion seeks to reassure its followers of a certain faith in something beyond themselves which is seemingly outside the boundaries of science and scientific investigation.

Religion is a form of social control. I don't think I should force anyone to conform to what I believe, but I would expect ideas to be discussed rationally and logically. There are no groups of scientists standing up this weekend attacking the works of the church in their field of 'expertise'.

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/...dnews/display.var.2140418.0.0.php
(Some comments I thought were relevant to that discussion in the comments after the sunday herald article.)

None of the major scientific advances of the last 500 years were appreciated or allowed to be taught as new knowledge unless it conformed to what the church itself believed. All knowledge has to reinforce the central belief.

Galileo and Descartes had to stand up to religious observance that sought to quell new knowledge that disn't happen to be religiously revealed to them. Descartes a devout catholic rejected authority as an arbiter of faith and proclaimed that it had to be discovered through the human intellect - this was recognized as a fundamental challenge to the church and ensured that Descartes was denied a Christian burial.

Galileo was forced to retract a sensible world view which clashed with the church - the Earth moves and rotates around the sun in this solar system... if the Church had never split and Latin was the only language an educated elite could communicate in and everything not directly attributed to archangels or saints was condemned as sinful, such as questioning the grand design of an invisible god would have stymied all medical and intellectual advances.

Human beings are mammals and are animals. We seem to be the most able and best adapted animals in the history of the world. To understand the root causes of malfunctions in the genetic structure of life is a worthwhile avenue to explore. Some new technologies are only scratching the surface of what can and could be possible. In some fields of science, research can take up to 50 years of constant small advances to arrive at a complete understanding of the mechanisms involved.
The Archbishop speaks with the authority of being a good scholar of a 2000 year old book of historical stories.
Western medicine is at a great disadvantage - in the last 200 years it has made great strides in improving the quality of life of ordinary people - without a prerequisite that they follow this faith or that faith.
If medical science does unlock the mechanisms that lead to solving and resolving, the many lives lost to Motor Neuron, and diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimers then that has to be applauded.
What really scares the Church it seems, to me at any rate, is the long view of medical discoveries and advances - test tube babies eg could be inserted into a woman who has never had sex ie a virgin birth.
If cell death can be slowed or changed by ethical means in a country which values such knowledge - eventually - in the realm of science fiction which they seem to quote - is the option of reversing cell death in an adult body... if you can bring a man back to life... you destroy the novelty of the Jesus resurrection story - it might become a common place occurance.
Good.
Science and the better understanding of it serves the future of mankind - a religion that fights against knowledge can only undermine itself.

The Lithgae Jambo

Any Church is as entitled to express its opinions on a subject just as any other pressure group can.

It's ultimately up to each individual MP to make his or her mind up. Keith O'Brien can't walk them through the lobby.

mairead

No TLJ,
He can't walk them anywhere, but he sure can influence the Catholic people, that's why churchmen/women should keep their noses out of government. He is entitled to his individual opinion as are the rest of us, but it is only HIS opinion.
Anyway, laboratory produced cells are no more human than the millions of Spermatoza that die for every egg that is fertilised. Like an egg from a female, these sperm are only POTENTIAL life forms.

Rinty

apart from that he is lying. There is no "human/animal hybid embryo" he describes it as such to make it sound more "monstrous".

One of the most reactionary bigots in the country and he threatens the catholic MPs that will be sinning and going against their church if they disagree with his warped views.

mairead

Aye Rinty. That's my point too, when churchmen give their own views to the congregations. They should stick to teaching religion ond leave the poiltics to those who are elected to run the country, or we will go back to the days when the church was the power and not the governments.

Rinty

I dont agree mairead, what I dont like is that he pressurises specific MPs and attempts to use their faith to hold them up as sinners if they challenge his views. Or present the idea that the protestant brown is bullying them into voting against their catholic faith.

He presents the case in a biased and over the top manner to scare people, epecially catholics.

I dont have a problem with clergymen speaking their mind or the churches having political views. But O'Brien loves the sound of his own voice and misrepresents this issue as he does with many others to present scare stories for catholics.

If he had just came out and stated his position that is one thing but to pressurise the catholic MPs is a problem for me.

Aventinian

RadgeJougal

"Knowledge and scientific advances do not stop at artificial national borders "

I take it you know that Mr O' Brien is a qualified scientist?

mairead

Grerat reply there Aventinian, NOT. Don't you ever get tired of trying to upset the Nats, and failing badly. LOL

Rinty

No, Obrien is a qualified science teacher, not a scientist.

And it would be irrelevant anyway as he has no expereince in the field and is lying and spinning on this issue.

Rinty

No, Obrien is a qualified science teacher, not a scientist.

And it would be irrelevant anyway as he has no expereince in the field and is lying and spinning on this issue.

RadgeJougal

He is a qualified scientist. That's what he graduated in. The spin is he's just another scientific illiterate, which isn't true.

Rinty

who is spinning that? He falsely makes claims of hybrid human/animal embryos. Having a science degree doesnt mean that he should be listened to.

Having a degree in science from 50 years ago is no substitute for the same 50 years being spent researchng the subject in hand.

RadgeJougal

It still makes him a scientist...

Rinty

Yes if maths degrees makes you a mathemetician and media degrees makes you a journalist. I dont think he has ever worked as a scientist.

And there still isnt any human/animal hybrid embryos.

Aventinian

RadgeJougal

RFM

Well Adventinian has a valid point: We need leaders to speak out when they see matters going on they believe are immoral. Consider the history of Adolph Hitler and Mussolini, both of whom portrayed themselves as hard nosed pragmatists who might well have been less sucessful if there had been more Reverend Niemollers. Consider George Bush who sees no conflict whatever with his own religious beliefs and a war he unleashed by an organized campaign of falsehood and deception.

The Roman Church and several religious leaders are all wet when it comes to a basic understanding of science. Consider the notion that life begins at conception, which has inflamed so many ardent anti-abortionists and which has also become the established statutory law of several states in the US.

Laying aside the lack of scientific knowledge, the fact is that very few would agree with the proposal that humans could and should be manufactured in an industrial process, not least for the moral issues, but also the legal and economic issues as well. If there is no bar or legal impediment to industrial production of humans, what is to stop some goofy from doing so?

Dave Coull

Scott2006 wrote "It seems as if certain church men are so out of touch with reality - it is scary - they speak as if they have all moral authority to hold back legitimate and ethical investigations into the unknown workings of fatal diseases".

I saw the cardinal on television. Now of course he does believe his church has moral authority, but in fact he was very careful not to claim any exclusive rights to this, he specifically included protestant Christians, Muslims, Jews, and also agnostics and atheists without religious beliefs, amongst those who are concerned about this. Claiming that even folk without religion are concerned struck me as quite a smart move by him, as well as happening to be true.

"Real advances in the quality of life has been achieved through medical investigation. Religious persecution and burning people at the stake for daring to believe that there is more truth to be gained from education and applied learning than various second hand tales and fictitious accounts of the lives of a few men 20 centuries ago is unfortuately an ongoing battle."

That doesn't alter the fact that it isn't just the catholic church which is concerned about the implications of some of the latest developments.

RFM writes "We need leaders to speak out when they see matters going on they believe are immoral".

Every individual has the right and the duty to speak out when they see things going on that are immoral. But as for needing leaders, particularly the leadership of Cardinals and such-like priests, the record of the Roman Catholic Church on NOT speaking out when they see matters going on that are immoral is a DISGRACE. They saw the Nazi holocaust going on, at close quarters, and they said nothing. As for you mentioning Adolf Hitler, he was raised as a Catholic. He never at any time renounced his Catholicism, and he was never at any time excommunicated. It is true that for much of his life he was not a practicing Catholic, but many of his most senior colleagues were. Hitler's closest allies continued to attend mass, and they continued to go to confession. What did their priests do? Tell the top Nazis to say twenty "Hail Marys"? None of the Nazi leadership were ever refused communion, none of them were told it was naughty to exterminate the Jews etc. There is a genuine question about the morality of some research. But the disgraceful record of the Catholic Church can obscure that genuine debate.

RFM

That is all a bit harsh Dave Coull,

After all, the Jewish extermination program was a top secret operation which was kept on a need to know basis. The SD, which was in charge of the program, knew they were commiting crimes, but figured that if they could sue for a compromise peace the rest of the world would not care about it. They were right in the sense that anti-semitism was rife in America, England, France, Italy and Poland just to name a few places at that time.

America refused entry to German Jewish refugees, as did England, with full knowledge of what was going on. There were regular radio programs that extolled the virtues of jew baiting in America from the 1930's on. Within the SS, the inner guard, knowledge of the jewish extermination was only known to the Totenkopf, and not even all of them. Remember that the leaders of July 20, 1944, were almost all Catholic, to a man.

You are certainly right that Pope Pius XXII could have done soemthing more than wring his hands, but look at what happened to Martin Niemoller and he was not the only one. The Nazi government operated a terrorist state and every German citizen knew it. Open your mouth and you simply disappeared. But it is easy to talk of courage in the comfort and safety of one's living room with a full stomach.

Dave Coull

RFM wrote "The Nazi government operated a terrorist state and every German citizen knew it".

Yes, the Nazi state used terror, and yes, most German citizens went along with this, but not all. Some German citizens did resist. For instance, there was an organisation of several hundred German women who were married to Jewish men, and, during the Second World War, this women's organisation held public demonstrations, in Berlin, in defence of their men, many of whom survived to outlive Hitler. These brave German women even managed to get a few Jewish men who had already been taken away returned from the Nazi death camps. Even at its most totalitarian and ruthless, the Nazi state still felt vulnerable enough to pay a little bit of attention to contrary opinion. You just had to be brave enough to express it.

"it is easy to talk of courage in the comfort and safety of one's living room with a full stomach".

I make no claims of courage for myself - but the Catholic Church does. It's claim to high moral authority is based on sacrifice and on the blood of martyrs. The fact that the Catholic church avoided speaking out during the Nazi holocaust makes a nonsense of that claim.

"the Jewish extermination program was a top secret operation"

Even before the program for exterminating the Jews, the Nazis already had a program of "euthanasia" for getting rid of undesirables. The first group to be dealt with were inmates of hospitals for the mentally sub-normal. Thousands of these unfortunates were killed in a programme that would later be extended to homosexuals, gypsies, Jews, political opponents, etc. The Catholic church knew all about the programme for euthanasia of those judged mentally subnormal, and said nothing.

The Pope at that time was a man who had spent many years in Germany and had excellent contacts there. The Catholic church is an extremely hierarchical organisation in which priests are responsible to their bishops, the bishops are responsible to their archbishops, and ultimately all report back to the Vatican. The Catholic Church knew better than any other organisation what was happening under the Nazis. Senior members of the Nazi Party were practicing Catholics and went to confession. Even if the priests didn't pass on the detailed secrets of the confessional, there is no way they didn't pass on the gist of what was happening. The Vatican knew.

Yes, of course there was anti-semitism in the USA and other countries, and Winston Churchill made some extremely anti-semitic and racist comments. But all of that is beside the point so far as what we were talking about here is concerned. There is a genuine concern about where present research could lead, but the Roman Catholic church is not the best organisation to articulate that concern, because it lost its claim to moral authority during WW2.

RFM

Perhaps it is doing its best to reclaim it?

Rinty

The Catholic Church in Scotland only get involved in this sport of politics and do so based on lies and scare stories. No-one is manufacturing humans for body parts or making hybrid human/animals. O'Brien wants to spread fear among catholics that shady scientists are playing god, it is in the interests of a leader of a cult based on superstition to portray science as dangerous. If scientists could cure the sick their holy tricks dont seem so convincing.

A Christian, in my opinion, should celebrate the god-given talent and intelligence of the scientists and the steps that might come from research in stem cells.

At the 2003 election the church sent a letter to be read out and distributed at every mass instructing catholics of the danger of parties who might be in favour of secular education and abolishig faith schools. This was at a time when we were bombing Iraq illegally, and the simple version of the letter was dont vote for the SSP or the Greeens, the only two parties who opposed the war in Iraq on principle.

The catholic church has no interest in 'moral' political stances, only in furthering it's own warped agenda.

I have no objection to church leaders or leaders of groups of people speaking out, The result should be answering his ignorance, not concentrating on the issue of whether he should speak or not. But O'Brien speaks with forked tongue and he talks s***e!

There has been a shift to the right in the catholic church since JP1, the current pope and his predessor are very much n the same camp as O'Brien and his predecessor, ignorant bigots.

Aventinian

RFM

Hi RInty;

Actually microbiological research has been done at at several universities, including Glasgow University, which requires manufacture of hybrid mouse-human embryos for about 30 years now. The reason has to do with the study of genetics and bacteria in an effort to keep ahead of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. While many people may find that sort of research distasteful, the alternative is experimentation on humans, which raises all sorts of ethical, legal and moral questions. This kind of research is done within several layers of oversight and supervision to avoid any notions that some sort of hybrid human is being created or concocted, but if you believe as many Catholics do, that human life begins at conception.....!

The argument about life beginning at conception was intended to head off any attempts to create a hybrid creature for medical experimentation, among others, but unfortunately the faithful have never grasped the fact that it was being done before the Church announced its doctrine. And the scientific community, like the "resurrection men" before them, do not publicize exactly what they do or how they do it. There are clearly unprincipled men of science, who would quite willingly clone a human being, simply in order to say they have done so, witness the Korean scientist who announced that he had created a human embryo until the community examined his data.

There is clearly grave danger in allowing the science community a free hand in what they will develope and for what purposes, simply because science has always aligned itself with large corporations and money. Think for a moment what a drug company could do with its research if it could clone humans for experimentation, then quietly dispose of them the way they do mice and rats. You think it has not occurred to their CEO's?

Rinty

In this current debate when O'brien says animal/human hybrids he is talking about human cells (usually from live human skin and not embryos, nurtured in an animal egg, the result is human stem cells,not hybrids.

Catholics do believe that life begins at conception but they are wrong in that and the 'every sperm is sacred' argument is not what O'Brien is doing here, he is creating monster myths to scare the congregation.

Scientists will find themselves compromised by corporations and money at times but no more so than popes or bishops.

The catholic church especially has been a part of outrageous crimes against humanity and not just in ancient times, their support for dictators in Spain and Portugal shows what they are about. If a political party agrees with them on their 'moral' points, then they can kill everybody and anybody they want as long as kids get catholic schooling, homosexuals are deviants and scientists are dangerous, they will turn a blind eye to attrocities.

As I said, at the height of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the catholic hurch here in scotland saw separate schools as the moral priority, not Iraq, darfur, congo, poverty or anything else, vote against the parties that oppose the war because they might close catholic schools!

O'brien shares his 'moral' beliefs with Abu Hamza.

RFM

I don't think so Rinty.

When Mr. O'Brien says human/animal hybrid embryo, he is clearly talking about such things as the human-mouse hybrid embryo. I don't understand what you mean when you say humans cells are nurtured in an animal egg. Could you please explain.

An embryo is a general term concerning the development ( in vertebrates) of the fertilization of an egg with sperm cells, although the term fetus is generally also used to imply greater development at some point in the process. Up until the 8th day after fertilization, the cells which develop by division are undifferentiated, meaning there is no discernible end point of development when the cells mature. They can be hair cells, bone cells skin cells, etc. After that point however, the cells begin to differentiate and the formation of eyes, nerves, etc. begins. The value of the stem cell or yet undifferentiated cell is that if prompted to develop as nerve cells in a human, the hope is that they will also develop into nerve cells as well in a location of the body where needed. That is where that research is going. An obvious source of embryo stem cells is abortion, or stated somewhat differently, to induce the poor and penniless to become pregnant to sell their embryos to raise money. In Scotland and in England, for instance, in the 19th century, dentists found they could extract decayed or damaged human teeth and replace them with a healthy tooth fairly easily. It was the well to do who sought the transplants and the poor such as chimney sweeps and beggars that sold them to the dentists.

The Catholic Church certainly has much to answer for and most of its leadership have avoided addressing the embarrassing questions. It is true that they have usually taken the position of retaining close ties to goverment and to dictators with the hope of exerting influence, which others have pointed at as moral cowardice. There are exceptions however, such as St. Josemarie Escriva, who continued his work as a priest avoiding conflict with General Franco of Spain, neither supporting nor criticizing, who went on to form an excellent order that devotes itself to its faith and to pride in personal work. That does not detract from the fact that when moral questions need to be asked, attacking the person or group on the basis of their past record, does not answer the moral questions raised.

Aventinian

Rinty

I don't think that plenty of catholic clergy ARE arrested are over the war, but there is a difference between the actions of a minority of clergy and the public proclamations of the cardinal, appointed by god to lead the catholics.

The current utterances of O'Brien are not re the old story of human ears on mices acks, it was a reaction to the bill before parliament.

He called the bill "monstrous" and used the words "frankenstein", "deathly" and "grotesque". This was used to pressurise MPs who were not elected as catholics but as representatives of Labour policy.

This bill would allow researchers to use animal eggs as there is a shortage of human eggs for research, they strip the animal egg of its nucleus and place human cells nucleus in the animal egg from which human stem cells, not human/animal hybrids are created. It doesnt allow them to create humans, hybrid monsters or clones!

RFM

If the nucleus grows and continues to divide, and it must or else the insertion of a foreign nucleus kills it, that is called life. Using an animal's ovum, or egg cell, with a human nucleus (which is essentially what a sperm cell does) is the creation of a hybrid embryo that must live on to some point to be of any use medically or scientifically. Like it or not that is the very definition of grotesque.

Since growth would require some degree of DNA matching to make the trick work, and since humans share about 98% of their DNA with certain other animals, what happens if these creations ever survive to the point of birth? Is the creation entitled to the rights and protections accorded to a human being at birth or is it simply a scientific curiosity that can be extingushed at the whim of the experimenter? What if the fertilized egg is re-emplanted in the animal, a dog say, and it escapes from the lab? Should anyone be allowed to kill it on sight? Or should we all close our eyes to the rights of pharmaceutical manufacturers to turn a profit from partially human embryos and trust to their better judgment and discretion?

Haven't we learned from the creation of nuclear fission and where that goes?

Scott2006

RFM you bring up some interesting points.

I don't believe that 100% control of scientists and scientific experiments by politicians is possible.
Take Smallpox as an example, it has been eradicated except in certain laboratories. It is supposed to be completely destroyed. Does anyone really believe there is no trace of it and all knowledge of how to reconstruct it has been destroyed? There are branches of the Armed Forces around the world that will always have on file the details we are supposed to believe exist only in the past.
No government is fully in control of all its agencies in a democracy - I would rather have as much openness about what is being investigated rather than the alternative where investigations into mammalian life-cycles and diseases go on in countries where a free press and freedom of speech and expression are not entertained.
If the work isn't done by the pharmaceutical companies in the west - it will happen in Minsk or Moscow or Beijing or Seoul.
The Luddites lost, progress goes on even if you name the process sacreligious dabbling in the human reality - cutting edge geneticists will still see progress.
Frankenstein - The Island of Doctor Moreau - Brave New World - countless other novels introduce the novelty of a fresh or different vision of where knowledge might take us - they are not actual reality though.
I would rather be kept informed and have western scientists discover the cures for Alzheimers rather than wait for a new version of the brain-drain where the brightest and best in their fields gravitate to where the new science takes them.
In life there has to be a series of trade-offs - never compromising is admirable in some instances but also self-defeating if not self-deluding.

Aventinian

RFM

Actually Scott, it does not appear to be a matter of control at all. It really comes down to making political choices.

For instance, after the atom bomb was developed and exploded on Japan, a debate began among the science teams headed by Dr. Oppenheimer about the ethical implications of what they had done. Remember that when the first device was detonated at Almagordo, NM, nobody knew what would happen once thermonuclear temperatures were attained in the chain reaction. In theory it was perfectly possible for the detonation to continue without end as long as there was sufficient material to feed the chain reaction. Nobody knew for certain and they understood that they could well be unleashing the end of humankind. It did not happen, of course, but it was justified by the thought that if they did not develop it, Hitler's teams would. After the war was over however, that rationale was no longer true and the scientists realized that they had given the military a weapon that could annihilate whole continents of humanity.
Into this debate came Werner von Braun, a wanted war criminal, now working for the Americans. He, almost single handedly, sold the whole need for continued development of nuclear arms for the military to Congress, and worked himself into a well paying job for the rest of his life.
All of this took place out of public view, indeed the public was not consulted or even informed, because it was all "national security". When private industry wanted to get into the act with electrical generating systems that were nuclear powered, the public began to ask embarassing questions. These were derided as "scare mongering" and "fear tactics", much the same as stem cell development critics are brushed off. After Three Mile Island and Chalk River, however, people began to realize that industry will pursue its own ends to make profits for its investors, regardless of the public interest, and if the public did not want to live with the consequences, they just needed to become proactive and ask the embarrassing questions.

In sum, the problem is public apathy, let "them" worry about it. And control and oversight passes right out of the public's hands.

RFM

Forgive me Scott, one last word.

In a democracy, the government is fully in control of all of its agencies. It is called the purse strings. All agencies of government need money and have to compete to get it.

Scott2006

RFM i'd like to have a way to believe that the political class in the UK or those interested enough to try have their voice heard, (based on only 1% of the population even being political party members) can hold enough sway with the leaders, but as has been seen in a parliament impervious to street demonstrations of over 1 million people protesting against a war and being ignored. The UK gives a party with less than a third of the electorate too much power and patronage and only calls them to account once every four or five years mostly - everyone but the choosen 330 or so individual party-whipped MPs are largely powerless if the MPs stick together.

The unknown consequences with the first test of the nuclear weapon where a thunder storm could have perhaps set it off prematurely potentially killing all the scientists in the area - chosen for the 16th of July at 5.30am to give Truman the result while he was preparing later that day to have face to face talks with Stalin. Our reality could have been so different.
In any exchange of nuclear weapons fired nowadays - the whole of West Central Scotland would be obliterated. We can't get rid of nuclear weapons and we can't use them - the spectre of evil dictators a few parts away from making a bomb will seemingly always be a factor in world affairs.
Once invented - can never really be reduced to nothing.
Or saying nothing more can be invented or tested in a risky area - the most that is achieved is a partial halt in investigating. If it is critically peer-reviewed, a way is found around anything if it is deemed important enough.

In a democracy, as you so rightly say, a government, (should be) fully in control of all its agencies. In the US Homeland Security and certain other agencies have had spectacular rises in money given to them. The senators and congressmen aren't fully in control of them. The Vice-President is in charge of classifying secrets nowadays in the Bush Whitehouse.
You could look at the past,namely the situation where J Edgar Hoover kept tabs on all the politicians ensuring years of uninterupted power - he knew too much to be shifted.
Vested interests and promoters of one cause or another keep politicians in line - the gravy train will stop McCain from balancing the budget he seems to think he can manage within 8 years.

Rinty

RFM

It is actually a problem which cuts across all party lines. Homeland Security is a very big cash cow for politically connected people, witness the house trailers made with formaldahyde insulation that were purchased for Katrina survivors. The head toxicologist at CDC in Atlanta was told to keep his mouth shut when he repeatedly insisted they were a public health hazard. It seems the trailer manufacturer is a large contributor to the Republican party. The same is true of Blackwater Security which provides exclusive security for the State Department in Iraq and also the airlines which were forced to take hundreds, if not thousands of aircraft out of service for safety inspections FAA officials decided were an expensive burden for them. It is called kick-back, and perfectly legal in America, known as "privatizing", as long as the "political donation" is not directly linked to the Whitehouse or the political party. Needless to say, it will be some time before people begin to insist that loophole be closed, simply because too many people are making a lot of money.

Change begins with educating the public; they need to know these things so that they can demand government take action. Although many people focus on the Iraq war as a moral issue, the fact is that it is driven by a lot of politicians of both parties, and their loyal constituents making a lot of money. I am certain the same is true in Scotland and the UK as well.

Aventinian

RFM

Hi Rinty,

I found this little article dated 2002 about the discussion taking place in America about the creation of a hybrid mouse-human, an embryo taken to birth. It seems the technique consists in implanting human stem cells in a mouse. The stem cell would retain its DNA which it would share with the mouse's DNA, resulting in a mouse that would have certain distinct human qualities. My information is that these hybrids have been produced in UK and Europe for some time, for laboratory microbiological research.
Read for your self:query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9400E5DA1738F934A15752C1A9649C8B63 - 32k - Cached - Similar pages
Reactivation of Ribosomal RN

Rinty

RFM,

That is not what O'Briens comments were about. He was speaking out about the changes brought in by the latest govt bill, the specific change that his comments were about was allowing human cells to be developed in animal eggs which have stripped of animal nucleus. this is due to the shortage of human eggs available to labs. His speech came on the week of the bill and he referred to catholic MPs voting intentions, the human eared mouse is already covered in previous legislation.

Aventinian,

Still no examples of the Catholic priests in Scotland being arrested protesting against the war. I havent witnessed any myself over the years and have had no response mostly from catholic priests to political events. The best I got was once when the 'peace bus' was coming to cumnock. The Catholic church let us use the car park, but the priest just said hello as he walked past while two protestant ministers turned up to support the bus and wore their CND badges.

Likewise we have many issues here in ayrshire such as the 'friends of dungavel' and palestine forum etc that are well attended and spported by members and clergy of CoS but catholic priests are less likely to get involved in my experience.

Most catholics that I know dont agree with O'Brien on this or wth their church on many issues. The problem that catholics have is that they have no way of expressng this through their leaders, their leaders are appointed by god and cardinals guided by the holy spirit. If they come out with statements that dont reflect the views of catholics it doesnt matter to them and never has.

My wife and my mother are catholics and disagree with him on this and strongly disagree with his view that homosexuals are "deviants". Most others that I know do so as well.

Aventinian

RFM

Hi Rinty,

Could you please provide a reference to the text of Mr. O'Brien's speech? I would be very interested reading it.

A small point perhaps, but the Church has a tradition dating back 2,000 years that bishops must be accepted as worthy by their congregations before they can be ordained. It is done by acclamation and one or more dissents cancels that person's candidacy. During the reformation of course, secular princes and kings got into the act and started deciding who was worthy and who was not and no comment was needed or required from the congregations. That was not the fault of the Church, however. The custom is being revived slowly, but a bishop need not be a priest, the only requirement is approval and being unmarried. A Cardinal is a bishop with duties connected to the running of the Church administrative machinery, one of which is the election of the Pope. God is not consulted or required.

Rinty

Aventinian,

Faslane is not the war. I specifcally made the point that the catholic church issued guidance to catholic voters in 2003 ignoring the immorality of the war in Iraq and singled out voting against parties who they saw as being a danger to separate catholic education, namely the SSP and Greens.

Being that those were also the only two parties who opposed the invasion and occupation outright I saw that as hypociritcal.

Faslane is not the same thing but as I said and you evidence seems to suggest, the main religious oposition is from CoS clergy.

But proclaiming opposition to trident does not change their voting instructions in 2003.

RFM,

Your experince of the catholic church is very different to mine, and to every one that I know. I have never heard of the congregation having the power of veto over an appointment. The way it is done, in my experince, is that catholics have no say over what priest they get, what priests become bishops and who becomes cardinal. Those who make the appointments have their judgements trusted by catholics as they are guided by the holy spirit when making appointments.

Dave Coull

RFM wrote "A small point perhaps, but the Church"

(He means the Roman Catholic Church)

"has a tradition dating back 2,000 years"

(RFM means the Roman Catholic Church. He specifically rejects the claims of "reformed" churches that they have a tradition going back 2,000 years, and that the Reformation was not something totally new but a re - forming of what had existed originally but had become corrupted)

"that bishops must be accepted as worthy by their congregations before they can be ordained. It is done by acclamation and one or more dissents cancels that person's candidacy."

There are plenty of occasions on historical record where presbyterian and other reformed congregations have rejected bishops and other ministers foisted upon them. I am not aware of a single case where a Roman Catholic congregation has done this.

"During the reformation of course, secular princes and kings got into the act and started deciding who was worthy and who was not"

It is quite obvious from this that RFM is unfamiliar with the history of the SCOTTISH Reformation. He is probably thinking of what happened in England. The Scottish Reformation of the years around 1560/1561 was a very different matter from what happened in England. Yes, it is true that later in Scottish history there were attempts by the king (by this time the king of England as well as Scotland) to foist bishops on unwilling congregations. The lengths which many protestant congregations went to, in order to reject these attempts, are a matter of historical record.

"and no comment was needed or required from the congregations"

The sheer amount of ignorance of Scottish history which this comment from RFM reveals is unfortunate. Yes, it is true that, so far as Scotland is concerned, princes and kings would have LIKED there to be no comment from the congregations about their choices of bishop, but to imagine that this is what in fact happened reveals a total failure to understand Scottish history.

Rinty says

"RFM, your experince of the catholic church is very different to mine, and to every one that I know. I have never heard of the congregation having the power of veto over an appointment."

It does happen, here in Scotland, but not in the Roman Catholic Church. Many years ago, my brother, as an elder of the Church of Scotland, was one of a local committee delegated by a local congregation to find a new minister for the village (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of course). They went and listened to several possibilities at different locations, then they invited three possible candidates to come and preach at the village kirk on consecutive Sundays. One of the three turned down the invitation. The two others accepted. More folk turned up for church on those two weeks than usual, to hear the possible new ministers speak. Then, after consulting with members of the congregation as a whole, the elders made a recommendation, which was generally accepted by the congregation. In accepting one candidate and not the other, the congregation was exercising a power of veto. The belief is that the Holy Spirit is expressed collectively, and not through the holder of any particular office. Of course, this is less likely to happen nowadays, because a shortage of candidates for the ministry means that the Holy Spirit has less to choose from. But the congregation's power of veto still exists. But like I said, not in the Roman Catholic church. RFM's picture of a Catholic church in which the congregations have the power of veto, and that power of veto was actually TAKEN AWAY away at the reformation, is total fantasy.

RFM

Dave Coull,

It was not my intention to open this thread to diatribes of religious bigotry; I was talking about the ethical implications of stem cell research, not the merits of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Protestant Reformation is widely known to scholars of history as commencing around 1517 with the activities of Martin Luther at Weurtemmberg. It is true that subsequently following the lead of the English Monarch, Henry VIII, the Protestant Church in Scotland came to unprecedented power, becoming for all practical purposes a branch of the government of Scotland, a few pages of Scot's history that reflects little credit on the nation's history. Those abuses however have always sought to explain themselves as a necessary and obvious result of the history of Catholicism that went before. My own view is that at bottom nothing more than the greed for power of unscrupulous men wearing the mantle of religion; a plague that brought about the reformation and continued for several hundred years after.

I am not responsible for your lack of "awareness" or to put it more bluntly, what you do not know about the history of the Catholic Church. If you condescended to read a bit, you would have known that several bishops of the Church were not even ordained priests, St. John Chrisostom for one. Simony, or the selling of religious offices, was one of Martin Luther's complaints. He was talking about priests for the most part, but he was also including bishops who were often family members or friends of the ruling nobility.He was also talking about the Investiture Controversy of the 11th century and the Concordat of Worms which was intended to eliminate secular appointment by the nobility.Appointment by the nobility proved to be inseperable from appointment by the congregations.

Today, the ordination of bishops requires the participation of the local synod, or representatives of the parishes.Each parish has a synod, but it does not follow from that that all of the members know or understand or even care what it does. The practice of acclaimation is slowly making a come back and if what I hear Pope Benedict saying is the wave of the future, it may well gather more impetus.

RFM

To Rinty,

I managed to find a copy of the Bill the Cardinal was speaking about, it is
here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmbills/070/2008070.pdf

This is the original version, not the subsequent versions with amendments and revisions.
The Bill clearly amends a prior piece of legislation of the same title dated 1990 and clearly states in no uncertain terms that "human embryo" means just that. A human ovum fertilized by human sperm. It also defines "admixed embryo" as a human, living embryo to which animal DNA is added. The Bill contemplates as safeguards that no fertilized egg, created within or without a human, which has added animal DNA shall be replaced in a woman, in other words allowed to proceed to birth. That would seem to strengthen safeguards as the implication is that the prior Act would have allowed the placement of a cross fertilized human egg to be placed in an animal and allowed to proceed to birth, exactly the situation in the New York Times article I posted previously. In short any cross fertilized or altered human embryo may not be allowed to proceed to birth.

Although the newspapers are quoted as saying that it means "hollowing out" a human egg and placing animal DNA inside, that is clearly an oversimplfication, to the point of being misleading. The Bill means that you can take a living fertilized human embryo out of a woman, substitute the DNA of an animal, and use the resultant creation for a limited period of time for medical research, you just can not replace it in an animal or a human.

Dave Coull

RFM writes "It was not my intention to open this thread to diatribes of religious bigotry"

Then why did you display such religious bigotry in your diatribe?

It is very common for discussions of one issue to raise other issues. If you would prefer to transfer this particular side-discussion to another topic, perhaps under the "History" section of the Our Scotland forum, then we can do that. But it was you who displayed sectarian bias by your remarks, and that bias needed correction.

"I was talking about the ethical implications of stem cell research, not the merits of the Roman Catholic Church".

Nevertheless, statement of fact, in the course of discussing stem cell research, you displayed religious bigotry.

"The Protestant Reformation is widely known to scholars of history as commencing around 1517"

This is a SCOTTISH forum. The Scottish Reformation happened around 1560, and took an extremely different course from the reformation in some other countries. Your statements showed a degree of ignorance of Scotland, and of Scottish history, which, on a Scottish forum, was bound to be corrected. The gracious thing to do would have been to accept the correction. Instead, you continue to display your bigotry.

Rinty, who comes from a catholic background, and whose wife and mother are practicing catholics, told you "RFM, your experience of the catholic church is very different to mine, and to every one that I know. I have never heard of the congregation having the power of veto over an appointment."

It is a fact that, for hundreds of years, many protestant congregations in Scotland have exercised a power of veto over the appointment of ministers. Our national bard, Robert Burns, wrote a poem exulting, celebrating, glorying in, the rejection of an unpopular minister who had the backing of some very powerful folk, but who was rejected by Rabbie's own local congregation. Rinty has said that "your experience of the catholic church is very different from mine". Can you name ONE instance when a catholic congregation has exercised this power of veto?

RFM

I will do better than that, my bigoted friend.

Read:://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Sep2007/books.asp#F1

If it is a particular name and place you need, give me a few hours.

Dave Coull

RFM calls me "my bigoted friend".

(1) I'm not your friend. I don't say this to be positively UN-friendly, but simply to acknowledge the reality that I am just somebody you have come across on a discussion forum. Now, of course, people do sometimes become friends with folk they argue with on discussion forums (that's how I met my wife) but, statement of fact, the present situation is that I am not your friend. We might become friendly in the future, or we might never be friends. Mere human beings cannot really aspire to a divine love for all mankind, in practice we tend to be more limited in our affections.

(2) I have already shown specific ways in which you displayed (probably unconscious) bigotry. I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted. By "quote" I mean, of course, my exact words, not some slanted paraphrasing of them.

As for the website you provided, for the Saint Anthony Messenger, I took a look and found "This is an appeal for equality among members of the Church and for the democratic election of bishops. According to O’Callaghan, a professor emeritus in the department of history at Fordham University, that’s the way it was done in the early Church, and should be done today."

That is an appeal for re-formation along the lines of the early church. So, you are saying that a few American catholics are now appealing for a return to doing things the way that Scottish protestants have been seeking to do things for hundreds of years?

RFM

I thought that referring to you as my bigotted friend would be less offensive than simply calling you a religious bigot. Foolish me!

Apparently careful reading is not your forte either. In a previous post I pointed out that the business of electing a bishop in the Church is the work of a number of bodies, including the local synod. To you counsel of ministers or elders, to the RC counsel of parishoners. They have had synods for 2000 years. the Protestants for a few years less.
They probably use the same idea because it works well.

Don't be over enthusiastic about my reference to you as a friend, I too tend to be choosy about who I associate and drink with. I even have several friends who are Protestants. I wasn't making a play for your affection.

Dave Coull

RFM’s portrait of a profoundly democratic catholic church will seem unfamiliar to many. As Rinty, whose wife and mother are both practicing catholics, said, “RFM, your experience of the catholic church is very different to mine, and to every one that I know”.

RFM writes “I thought that referring to you as my bigotted friend would be less offensive than simply calling you a religious bigot”.

RFM is American. Nothing wrong with that, so is my wife. RFM is also a practicing catholic. Again, nothing wrong with that, so is my stepson. What is wrong is RFM assuming that anybody who is Scottish and comes from a protestant background must be a bigot. He is assuming that a majority of the population of Scotland are bigots. Now, of course, we do have bigotry here in Scotland, of several varieties, but RFM is wrong to make an automatic assumption that anybody who comes from a category which includes the majority of the population of Scotland must be a bigot. RFM has avoided taking the challenge I made in a previous post. In case you have forgotten what that challenge was, RFM, here it is again: “I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted. By ‘quote’ I mean, of course, my exact words, not some slanted paraphrasing of them”.

Historically speaking there have of course been literally hundreds of occasions when Church of Scotland congregations have vetoed ministers, but out of those hundreds I mentioned two specific examples, one involving our national bard Robert Burns, who wrote a poem celebrating this, and the other involving my own brother. RFM has avoided answering the question “Can you name ONE instance when a catholic congregation has exercised this power of veto?”

RFM

Now, now David,

Losing your cool and resorting to gross exaggeration will not help you.

It is within my personal knowledge that an individual was proposed for bishop in the St.Louis diocese here in the midwest about 5 years ago and when his candidacy was announced to the congregations, it brought forth cries of "Ne Axios" (not worthy). Needless to say the event was not publicized at all and I happened to hear about it from a synod member. It also seems to be historical fact that certain high ranking prelates, Abbot Hugh of Cluny for one,was refused a bishopric because of objections raised to his candidacy. These matters are not highly publicized for the obvious reason that it reflects badly on the rejected candidate. I have no doubt that many people do not know how bishops are selected and confirmed nor are they widely told when a candidate is rejected. It does not follow from that however that lack of personal knowledge is proof of none existance of the fact. Ignorance may be bliss but it is also not evidence.

Although I don't think it is any of your business David, my father and his father before him were Protestants as are two of my brothers. We all view each other with the respect due a family member and regard an individual's religious beliefs as his own personal affairs.

Dave Coull

Since it still hasn't been answered, here it is yet again "“I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted. By ‘quote’ I mean, of course, my exact words, not some slanted paraphrasing of them”.

RFM

Stop your hysterical bleating David,

This is s thread about the speech of a religious figure opposing certain UK legislation he thinks is immoral. It is not about you.

Get a life!

Dave Coull

RFM wrote "This is a thread about the speech of a religious figure opposing certain UK legislation he thinks is immoral".

That is what it WAS about, until YOU made remarks which changed the subject.

However, since we have now established that your answer to “I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted" is that you have no answer, I will happily leave it at that.

RFM

Read my previous post David.

Dave Coull

RFM says “Read my previous post”.

I did.

Like I said, we have now established that your answer to

“I challenge you to quote anything I have said which you consider to be bigoted, and to try to show in what way it is bigoted. By ‘quote’ I mean, of course, my exact words, not some slanted paraphrasing of them”

is that you have no answer. So I will happily leave it at that.

Amber

You know, you can come across as a bit of a prat, Mr Coull.

RFM

Maybe you ought to consider taking some of the advice you were giving Red Justice, David, and have a nice quiet talk with your family doctor. I think I can safely say he will not throw a net over you or put you in a dark room, but you may find the experience rewarding.

Rinty

RFM,

You obviously have no knowledge of the RC church in Scotland or the reformation, there is no synod of parishioners or any other similar group in the scottish catholic church, only in the anglican and episcopalean churches.

On the embryo thing, I think your last post confirmed what I have been saying. This bill doesnt extend use of animals and/or hybrids, it tightens existing legislation and allows the use of animal eggs in purely labaratory experiments not for creating frankenstein half human half crocodiles.

I didnt see the newspapers that you refer to about 'hollowing out' and would not have used that sort of simplistic way of saying it. ut, that process does not include 'inserting animal DNA' and would result in human cells for lab reserach.

But, your portrayal of the bill is much as I read it and is surely contrary to the cardinal's protrayal of frankensteins,monsters and death.

The Cardinals language shows that the catholic leaders in scotland still use the centuries old 'scary monster' arguments.

But it was also about interfering in a bill at a late stage, delberately late, so that a limited debate based on spin could presurise the MPs rather than a rational debate with the catholic MPs.

Any catholic MP WILL have dilemnas over this bill, will have discussed with their priest (and perhaps their god), the church HAVE issued their views through catholic media and lectures, so every catholic MP would be aware of the churches position.

Intervening at this stage through this speeech was with the intention of saying to the MPs "you have no right to an individual interpretaion of your faith, if you vote for this it is against the church" which would or could cause loss of catholic votes for that MP.

The 'free vote' debate is just nonsense.

If you are elected as a party representative then you decide to agree to work with that group, meaning that you support a package that will include things you disagree with. At times your party will require you to support such issues. Every MP has a free vote on every issue. if they cannot vote with their party when required then they can step out of that group in parliament. Preferably they would do this BEFORE an election and not get elected as a 'labour' MP only for the constituents to dscover that had elected a 'catholic' MP instead of a labour one.

One good thing to come from O'Briens comments might be that we get to know which MPs will allow their religious views to dictate how they vote more than the views of their party. In subsequents elections those who take the cardinal's advice will, in my opinion, lose more votes than the catholic votes lost by those who oppose the cardinal's instructions.

RFM

Every elected official takes an oath of office, which although stated in different forms is intended to be certain he remains loyal to his government and to the laws of his country.
It is indeed unfortunate that a doctrine has srpung up with the Catholic Church that demands public officials, right down to dispensing pharmacists, follow the doctrines of their religion before their legal obligations to their constituents and to the public. In cases of conflict between religious belief and public duty, a conscientious individual would and should resign their office, but apparently very few are willing to trade their livelihoods for their beliefs.

Unquestionably DNA insertion and the development of hybrid human-animal embryos have led, and will in the future lead to advances in the knowledge of human diseases and cures. That does not mean that the field should be left exclusively in the hands of the scientists who in all cases are driven by corporate money and the quest for profits. For instance all new drugs are required to undergo safety testing, which is begun with animals. If it could be done directly on disposable humans, much time and money would be saved thereby. Much menial labor in manufacturing for existence could become far more profitable than using robots or machines, if the industry were allowed to use human labor that was unaware of its own existence and could be disposed of when necessary or replenished as needed. Slavery still exists in the world today and could be completely legal (perhaps) with manufactured and disposable humans as rats and mice presently are. These are the very real problems that need to be addressed where the future of stem cell research is concerned.

Because the science is very esoteric, very few people are going to take any interest or understanding in it at all. Hyperbolic description made be deplorable, but it certainly catches the public attention. Perhaps that was the Cardinal's intention.

Dave Coull

To begin with I wasn’t sure where I stood on this matter, partly because I just didn’t know enough about it. In my first post on the subject I wrote “I saw the cardinal on television. Now of course he does believe his church has moral authority, but in fact he was very careful not to claim any exclusive rights to this, he specifically included protestant Christians, Muslims, Jews, and also agnostics and atheists without religious beliefs, amongst those who are concerned about this. Claiming that even folk without religion are concerned struck me as quite a smart move by him, as well as happening to be true”.

I went on to add “it isn't just the catholic church which is concerned about the implications of some of the latest developments”.

But if for a fleeting moment I thought the leopard might be changing its spots, RFM soon put that daft idea out of my head.

Rinty says “ RFM, You obviously have no knowledge of the RC church in Scotland or the reformation”.

I agree. The incongruity of some American in Chicago trying to tell us we don’t understand what has happened, and is happening, in our own country, doesn’t seem to bother RFM, in fact he seems to take delight in being offensive. While I still claim no expertise on the subject of medical research, and while I’m still not sure where we should draw the line on this, RFM’s support for the Cardinal has had the opposite effect to what he intended.

Rinty wrote “I have 'plenty' of experience in protesting against the war and trident and I can say with surety that you are far likelier to be lifted next to a presbyterian minister than a catholic priest”

Any of us in Scotland who have taken part in protests against nuclear weapons, and against the war in Iraq, will know Rinty speaks the truth about this.

Rinty also wrote “The Catholic church in Scotland take a different attitude to politics from the national protestant church. The Kirk are quite happy to make statements on political issues from a moral standpoint. But they do so from a political stance on issues such as poverty, took a very clear view on iraq etc, not as an instruction to presbyterian MPs.”

That is an important difference. While the Kirk has its own prejudices, and while it is certainly a very long way short of perfect, the Kirk does at least take a stand over things like poverty and war, but it doesn’t try to give orders to MPs and MSPs. The Catholic church does indeed try to order catholic MPs how to vote - on things like maintaining the privileged position of Catholic schools, and on this embryo thing, but not on the issues of poverty and war.

Rinty says “The Kirk would not issue a statement on how protestant MPs should be voting………O'Brien's pressure was unnecessary and was an order from above”.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this embryo debate, it is important that the Cardinal should be resisted, precisely because he IS trying to give orders.

Dave Coull

Well within living memory (I cited one example), and even today (although nowadays there can be something of a shortage of candidates for the ministry) you can get congregations of the Church of Scotland deciding between different possible candidates for their minister. Although the job isn't advertised down at the local job centre, nevertheless, there is a process of job application and candidate selection. The final selection is made by the members of the congregation of that particular local church. Nobody suggests that unsuccessful candidates should be ashamed. They were just unsucessfull on this particular occasion, for this particular vacancy, at this particular place, and maybe the Holy Spirit will want them to be successful another time and place. This is such a normal, regular, matter, it may merit a few lines in the local paper about who the new minister is, but not a SHOCK! HORROR! story that somebody else wasn't selected.

RFM says "It is within my personal knowledge that an individual was proposed for bishop in the St.Louis diocese here in the midwest about 5 years ago and when his candidacy was announced to the congregations, it brought forth cries of Ne Axios' (not worthy)."

Note that, as in the former Soviet Union, only ONE candidate was proposed by the hierarchy.

Note also that the only way of rejecting them was to shout out "NOT WORTHY!" in Latin.

"Needless to say the event was not publicized at all"

The reason it is "needless to say" is because the Roman Catholic Church has a habit of hushing things up. They have hushed up literally thousands of cases of child abuse by priests, bishops, etc, for instance. In this particular case, although there was less cause for shame than in child abuse cases, they hushed up from sheer force of habit.

"These matters are not highly publicized for the obvious reason that it reflects badly on the rejected candidate."

It only reflects badly on the rejected candidate because they were the ONLY candidate, and because the ONLY way to express dissent was to shout out "NOT WORTHY!" in Latin. If one candidate in an election for the Scottish Parliament narrowly defeats another candidate, nobody suggests the unsuccessfull candidate has to hide him/herself away in shame, or that the entire political establishment of Scotland has to connive in a cover-up. More generally, if one applicant for a job is chosen and another applicant is not, nobody suggests it all has to be hushed up to protect the unsuccessful applicant.

It is right and proper that we should all be involved in considering whether there are some things that scientific medical researchers should not do, and, if so, where the boundaries should be drawn; but the question is a complex one, on which folk can quite honestly have different opinions.

However, there is nothing complex about the question as to whether Cardinal Keith O'Brien should be resisted. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is still authoritarian. When a Cardinal tries to issue orders about which way Scottish MPs ought to vote, that should be resisted.

Card. Keith O'Brien anti-medical knowledge advances?

Re: Card. Keith O'Brien anti-medical knowledge advances?