More St. Louis Controversy

And dear Jamie thought he'd have an easy last two weeks.... They're already counting down to his return to radio.

The latest Burke brouhaha involves the archdiocese's decision to shut out the popular round-table discussions of the Aquinas Institute. But apparently, at least according to Tim Townsend of the beloved Post-Dispatch, there are no doctrinal qualms:

Indeed, had Pope Benedict XVI been among the audience at a recent round table on stem cell research, he undoubtedly would have approved of the lecturer's position, clearly staked out, that experimenting on embryonic stem cells is wrong.

On that sticky Wednesday afternoon this month, more than 300 people packed into the basement dining hall of the Rigali Center to enjoy a boxed lunch and listen to moral theologian and medical ethicist Sr. Jean deBlois talk about stem cell research.

In her lecture, titled "Stem Cell Research: The Tip of the Ethical Iceberg," deBlois aimed to explain the ethics behind the science. "I'm not going to talk about church teaching," she said. "I assume church teaching as the platform on which I stand."

Not only is it wrong, said deBlois, but because the promise of umbilical cord blood stem cells is so great, experimentation on embryonic stem cells is unnecessary. What the media and some scientists call "somatic cell nuclear transfer" is actually cloning and "Orwellian" and could easily lead to reproductive cloning, she said....

Burke declined to be interviewed for this story and through archdiocesan spokesman Jamie Allman said only: "This was an administrative decision, and there will be no further comment."

Hmm. Bizarre... I don't know what to make of it, and I'll wait on further word from Lindell Blvd. before making any further comment.

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