Conscience Protection

• For those in public office
• For those affected by threats to Conscience Protection & Religious Liberty
• Prayer for Protection of Conscience Rights in Healthcare
• Prayer for Protection of Religious Liberty
• Intercessory Prayers for Fortnight for Freedom Ecumenical Prayer Service
• Please consider joining the Holy Rosary prayed for America at 7pm EVERY MONDAY EVENING at St. Matthew the Apostle on Jefferson HWY in River Ridge.  The Rosary will be prayed either in the church or at the statue of Mary just in front of the church. Bring your family & friends!  Spread the word!  For more information call Stephanie at 504-737-9776.
• Prayer for Religious Liberty (prayer card)

Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research
Let us Pray,

Lord God, you alone have the power to instill the spark of life, yet, you have made humankind the stewards of creation. 
Help us to be faithful to this sacred trust so that we may protect and promote the dignity of every human life from the very moment of conception, particularly the tiniest humans in the embryonic stage of human development who are so often forgotten by society & used by modern science.  May these tiny humans be given the full respect due toall human life.  May those entrusted to care for them protect them fully from all experimentation and harm.  And may these tiniest of us be afforded the opportunity to grow to the fullness in this life for which they are created.  We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

          
 

Conscience Protection 

What is Religious Liberty?
According to Dignitatis Humanae, "...the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right" (2).  In the US our religious liberty is protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in various federal and state laws.

Our freedom includes more than our ability to worship & pray inside a church or at home; it also encompasses our ability to contribute freely to the common good in accord with the fullness of our Faith.
Religious Freedom Week
Venerable Henriette DeLille, one of the 2016 Witnesses to Freedom

Stem Cell & Human Cloning Awareness

From Donum Vitae (4):

“If the embryos are living, whether viable or not, they must be respected just like any other human person; experimentation on embryos which is not directly therapeutic is illicit. No objective, even though noble in itself, such as a foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or foetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother's womb.”

From Dignitas Personae (28, 29, 30):

“Human cloning is intrinsically illicit in that, by taking the ethical negativity of techniques of artificial fertilization to their extreme, it seeks to give rise to a new human being without a connection to the act of reciprocal self-giving between the spouses and, more radically, without any link to sexuality. This leads to manipulation and abuses gravely injurious to human dignity.  If cloning were to be done for reproduction, this would impose on the resulting individual a predetermined genetic identity, subjecting him – as has been stated – to a form of biological slavery, from which it would be difficult to free himself. The fact that someone would arrogate to himself the right to determine arbitrarily the genetic characteristics of another person represents a grave offense to the dignity of that person as well as to the fundamental equality of all people.

From the ethical point of view, so-called therapeutic cloning is even more serious. To create embryos with the intention of destroying them, even with the intention of helping the sick, is completely incompatible with human dignity, because it makes the existence of a human being at the embryonic stage nothing more than a means to be used and destroyed. It is gravely immoral to sacrifice a human life for therapeutic ends.”

From Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, on reports that a biotechnology firm has cloned human embryos (2001):

“Human cloning does not treat any disease but turns human reproduction into a manufacturing process, by which human beings are mass-produced to preset specifications. The cloning procedure is so dehumanizing that some scientists want to treat the resulting human beings as subhuman, creating them solely so they can destroy them for their cells and tissues....

While cloning may never produce any clinical benefit, its attack on human dignity has already begun.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2275):

"One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival…It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material."

From Donum Vitae (4):

“If the embryos are living, whether viable or not, they must be respected just like any other human person; experimentation on embryos which is not directly therapeutic is illicit. No objective, even though noble in itself, such as a foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or foetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother's womb.”

From Dignitas Personae (31, 32):

“Among the sources for human stem cells which have been identified thus far are: the embryo in the first stages of its existence, the fetus, blood from the umbilical cord and various tissues from adult humans (bone marrow, umbilical cord, brain, mesenchyme from various organs, etc.) and amniotic fluid. At the outset, studies focused on embryonic stem cells, because it was believed that only these had significant capabilities of multiplication and differentiation. Numerous studies, however, show that adult stem cells also have a certain versatility. Even if these cells do not seem to have the same capacity for renewal or the same plasticity as stem cells taken from embryos, advanced scientific studies and experimentation indicate that these cells give more positive results than embryonic stem cells. Therapeutic protocols in force today provide for the use of adult stem cells and many lines of research have been launched, opening new and promising possibilities.

In these methods, the origin of the stem cells must be taken into consideration. Methods which do not cause serious harm to the subject from whom the stem cells are taken are to be considered licit. This is generally the case when tissues are taken from: a) an adult organism; b) the blood of the umbilical cord at the time of birth; c) fetuses who have died of natural causes. The obtaining of stem cells from a living human embryo, on the other hand, invariably causes the death of the embryo and is consequently gravely illicit: research, in such cases, irrespective of efficacious therapeutic results, is not truly at the service of humanity.”

• What is Religious Liberty?
  According to Dignitatis Humanae, "...the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right" (2).  In the US our religious liberty is protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and in various federal and state laws.
  
  Our freedom includes more than our ability to worship & pray inside a church or at home; it also encompasses our ability to contribute freely to the common good in accord with the fullness of our Faith.
  Religious Freedom Week
  Venerable Henriette DeLille, one of the 2016 Witnesses to Freedom