But every once and awhile I hear a priest such Fr. Frank Pavone tell the faithful to vote for socially conservative politicians who staunchly oppose abortion but who openly disdain Catholic notions of commutative or distributive justice. Yet Christ never refuted the traditional Jewish message that abortion, while immoral, was not murder. Nor did I ever recall reading where He abrogated either the halakic exceptions allowing abortion under certain circumstances such to save a mother's life. Nor did I ever read where Christ refuted Jewish belief which holds that the embryo has the status of water for the first forty days of existence. It makes sense to me that a Jewish Jesus lived on earth by Jewish law.

Since New Year's Day I've been pondering the condition of my health. I am 46 years old and for most of my adult life I've been fighting LMG muscular dystrophy. I am now in a wheelchair patiently waiting for a treatment, let alone a cure. I can no longer readily travel on vacation since most hotels do not have hoists I require just to shower, use the bathroom or get in bed. I cannot give my children many of the normal parenting experiences that every child requires. For me and hundreds of thousands of other Americans who fight degenerative diseases almost everyday brings a new physical limitation. To many of us it brings premature death.

The one bright spot has been stem cell research, whether it is embryonic, SCNT embryonic ("therapeutic cloning") or adult stem cell research. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church, my Church, has chosen to wage war against this first real ray of hope. Even more distressing, in St. Louis, Missouri Archbishop Raymond Burke has made it his personal vendetta to stop the research from going forward by ordering the priests of his diocese to give sermons telling St. Louis Catholics it would be a sin to vote for a statewide ballot initiative funding embryonic  stem cell research.

The Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative would fund all reputable forms of stem cell research, adult as well as embryonic. This legislation is supported by many mainline Protestant Churches as well as most Missouri Jewish congregations and the majority of rank and file Catholics. It is for the parent with a diabetic child or a husband whose wife is afflicted with Parkinson's disease: activist government at its best; providing hope by aggressively seeking to cure disease and disability.

Unfortunately, Archbishop Burke does not see it that way. He is more concerned with embryos which have not yet even taken the step to becoming a fetus. And although I am a Catholic, I do not accept the proposition that a human being exists upon conception. An embryo in a Petri dish is no more a natural born human being than an acorn is an oak tree.
There most be more than the mere existence of a few cells to define humanity. It is well established scientific fact that before implanting in the uterine wall an embryo can combine with another to form a third embryo or it can even split into two embryos. Furthermore, a portion of the embryo carries what eventually could be the placenta; something no faith assigns that any human equivalency.

So, whenever the issue of stem cell research is broached in Mass I have resolved to make myself seen so that the priest can see the consequences of stifling this research. And when I make myself visible I will not scream and yell, but with dignity proclaim, "I dissent."

And I ask all other righteous people who believe as I do to do the same. Whenever you are confronted in God's House by a Bishop Burke, a Jerry Falwell or a Don Wildmon, men who fight this research partly as a mean to impose their orthodoxies upon American society, proclaim with courage and dignity, "I dissent."

And when I dissent I know in my soul that I am acting in accordance with a Jesus who placed healing the sick and disabled at the forefront of His ministry.