1) New York Times, October 26, 2006/Sports Thursday; D3.
St. Louis, Oct. 25 – “Jeff Suppan was scheduled to pitch Wednesday night for the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the World Series, but his time on the mound was not his only planned appearance on the game’s telecast.
“Suppan is one of several athletes who appear in a political advertisement to be broadcast regionally on the Fox network when Game 4 – which was rained out Wednesday – is played. The ad urges Missouri voters to oppose embryonic stem-cell research and vote against Amendment 2 to the State Constitution, which will be on the ballot in the election Nov. 7.
“In a video copy of the ad, produced and distributed by an anti-amendment group called Missourians Against Human Cloning and posted on the Internet, Suppan’s face appears in the first 10 seconds. He is not wearing a baseball cap.
“`Amendment 2 claims it bans human cloning, but in the 2,000 words you don’t read, it makes cloning a constitutional right,’ Suppan says in the ad. `Don’t be deceived.’
“Other athletes who appear in the ad are Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals, who formerly played with the St. Louis Rams, and Mike Sweeney of the Kansas City Royals. James Caviezel, the actor who played Jesus in the film `The Passion of the Christ,’ also appears.
“The timing is no coincidence: Cathy Ruse [wife of Austin Ruse], a spokeswoman for Missourians Against Human Cloning, said the group specifically bought advertising time during Game 4, when Suppan was scheduled to pitch.”
2) The Missouri Catholic Conference said “the 100 word ballot summary" of Constitutional Amendment 2 that "voters will see upon entering the voting booth states that the proposal bans human cloning, but this is false. The ballot summary is relying upon a scientifically inaccurate definition of human cloning found in the full text of the proposal, which voters will not see when entering the voting booth. If voters could read the full text, they would know that human cloning is being authorized in the form of somatic cell nuclear transfer”[1] (underline mine).
3) In an international conference in Rome sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life and the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Benedict XVI said that embryonic stem-cell research is opposed for its destruction of human embryos to harvest stem cells.
4) Jeff Suppan and the other high profile personalities are living out the apostolic mandate of Christ to give testimony to the truth with the authority that professional, secular prestige gives them.
Prestige is today the professorial chair of recognized authority. To raise the culture to the level of Christ as the meaning of the human person, Christian professionals are needed who work a lot and very well in the nerve centers of society. This is the mission of lay people in the Church. Going, teach!
[1] Origins, October 19, 2006, Vol. 36, Number 19, 293-295.
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