Queen of the Apostles Church
715 Hawthorne Street
(Corner of Hawthorne & Spring Streets)
Avoca PA 18642
HIGHLIGHTS …
Spirit-filled Prayer & Praise
Inspiring Music & Anointed Worship
Challenging Teaching
Prayers for Healing
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While millions of laypeople around the world are recognized as catechists in their parish or diocese, Pope Francis is preparing to formally institute the “ministry of catechist.”
The Vatican press office said May 5 that Pope Francis’ apostolic letter “Antiquum Ministerium” (“Ancient Ministry”), instituting the ministry, would be released May 11.
Pope Francis often has spoken of the importance of selecting, training and supporting catechists, who are called to lead people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, prepare them to receive the sacraments and educate them in the teachings of the church.
In many parts of the world, especially in communities without a resident priest, catechists are the leaders of the local Catholic community, evangelizing, convoking and guiding their fellow Catholics in prayer and works of charity. And, in missionary territories under the guidance of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, they already serve with a specific mandate from their bishop.
The congregation’s 1997 Guide for Catechists noted that “the Code of Canon Law has a canon on catechists involved in strictly missionary activity and describes them as ‘lay members of Christ’s faithful who have received proper formation and are outstanding in their living of the Christian life. Under the direction of missionaries, they are to present the Gospel teaching and engage in liturgical worship and in works of charity.'”
In some communities, it said, catechists may be entrusted by their bishop with the tasks of: “preaching to non-Christians; catechizing catechumens and those already baptized; leading community prayer, especially at the Sunday liturgy in the absence of a priest; helping the sick and presiding at funerals; training other catechists in special centers or guiding volunteer catechists in their work; taking charge of pastoral initiatives and organizing parish functions; helping the poor and working for human development and justice.”
The Statistical Yearbook of the Church, a Vatican publication, said that as of Dec. 31, 2019, there were more than 3 million catechists serving the church.
At meetings of the Synod of Bishops over the past 30 years, especially synods for individual regions of the world, bishops highlighted the important role of lay catechists in building and sustaining local Christian communities and called for more resources to be devoted to their training and support and for greater recognition and respect for their contributions.
Pope Francis’ decision to formally institute the ministry of catechist seems to be a response to those calls.
The move follows the pope’s decision in January to open the ministries of lector and acolyte to women. While in most dioceses women already served as readers and altar servers at Mass, they were not formally instituted in those services on a stable basis.
In his January decision, the pope cited the request made by members of the 2019 Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, asking that the church “promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner. The fabric of the local church, in the Amazon as elsewhere, is guaranteed by small missionary church communities that cultivate faith, listen to the Word and celebrate together close to the people’s life. It is the church of baptized men and women that we must consolidate by promoting ministries and, above all, an awareness of baptismal dignity.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As India faces a massive surge in new infections and deaths caused by COVID-19, Pope Francis said he was praying for all those affected by the huge health emergency.
With so many in India suffering, “I am writing to convey my heartfelt solidarity and spiritual closeness to all the Indian people, together with the assurance of my prayers that God will grant healing and consolation to everyone affected by this grave pandemic,” he wrote.
Smashing global records, on May 5 more than 412,000 new cases and 3,980 deaths were registered in India in just 24 hours; however, health experts estimate the actual numbers are much higher due to unrecorded deaths and infections. The World Health Organization said India has accounted for 46% of global cases and 25% of global deaths reported in the past week.
In a written message sent May 6 to Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, the pope said he was praying for all those who have become sick, for their families and caregivers and for those mourning the loss of loved ones.
“I think too of the many doctors, nurses, hospital workers, ambulance drivers and those working tirelessly to respond to the immediate needs of their brothers and sisters,” the pope wrote. “With deep appreciation I invoke upon all of them God’s gifts of perseverance, strength and peace.”
The pope also expressed his closeness to the nation’s Catholic communities and thanked them for their “charity and fraternal solidarity carried out in the service of all; I think especially of the generosity shown by so many committed young people.”
He prayed for the faithful who have lost their lives, including “the great numbers of priests and men and women religious,” and asked that “in these days of immense grief, may we all be consoled in the hope born of Easter and our unshakable faith in Christ’s promise of resurrection and new life.”
Meanwhile, UNICEF has warned that the deadly surge in COVID-19 cases in India “is larger and spreading more rapidly than the first,” putting an enormous strain on health and critical care facilities.
“Urgent action is needed to avert further tragic loss of life,” it said on its website, appealing for funding to deliver urgently needed testing equipment, supplies and oxygen products and other services.
The pandemic’s first wave last year resulted in major cuts to public health services in South Asia, costing the lives of an estimated 228,000 children and 11,000 mothers, said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF’s regional director.
Essential health services, such as routine inoculations, have been disrupted and even risk being shut down with healthcare staff, equipment and facilities being diverted to addressing the ballooning pandemic, he said in a statement May 4.
Increasing numbers of children are being hurt by the pandemic as they lose parents and caregivers, witness traumatic scenes and lose vital health care, nutritional, education and support services, he said.
The current second wave throughout South Asia has the potential to cause immense devastation, Laryea-Adjei warned saying immediate assistance from the international community was “a moral imperative.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As countries become more culturally and ethnically diverse, their Catholic communities become more “catholic” and their societies can increasingly reflect the fact that all people are brothers and sisters, Pope Francis said.
“In encountering the diversity of foreigners, migrants and refugees, and in the intercultural dialogue that can emerge from this encounter, we have an opportunity to grow as church and to enrich one another,” the pope wrote in his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be marked Sept. 26 in most countries.
“All the baptized, wherever they find themselves, are by right members of both their local ecclesial community and the one church, dwellers in one home and part of one family,” the pope wrote in the message, which was released May 6 at the Vatican.
The message called on all Catholics to build up the church by welcoming and getting to know Catholic migrants and refugees and reaching out with a witness of charity to members of other religions, and it called on all people to enrich the diversity of their countries by accepting newcomers and ensuring they are not left languishing in poverty.
Cardinal Michael Czerny, undersecretary of the Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees Section, was asked about people who fear, for example, that continuing migration will bring more Muslims to Europe, contributing to a further decline of Christianity on the continent.
“It is a real problem if one feels insecure or threatened or vulnerable in one’s faith life because of others,” he said. “We need to get beyond the ‘wall,’ beyond the barrier,” and a first step could be to ask, “Have I ever spoken with or even listened to someone from that other faith? Do I know what I am talking about or am I relying on images and slogans and hearsay?”
A Christian has an obligation to seek the truth, the cardinal said, “and not rely on these fear-mongering cliches which are not only baseless but are, in fact, serving other motives.”
The theme the pope chose for the day is “Toward an ever wider ‘we,'” and it builds on the teaching in his encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.”
In the encyclical, his message said, “I expressed a concern and a hope that remain uppermost in my thoughts: ‘Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation.”
“God willing,” he said, “after all this, we will think no longer in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those,’ but only ‘us.'”
God created human beings different from one another but as members of one family, the pope said. “When, in disobedience we turned away from God, he in his mercy wished to offer us a path of reconciliation, not as individuals but as a people, a ‘we,’ meant to embrace the entire human family, without exception.”
In today’s world, though, “this ‘we’ willed by God is broken and fragmented, wounded and disfigured,” he said.
“Our ‘we,’ both in the wider world and within the church, is crumbling and cracking due to myopic and aggressive forms of nationalism and radical individualism,” Pope Francis said. “The highest price is being paid by those who most easily become viewed as others: foreigners, migrants, the marginalized, those living on the existential peripheries.”
For Catholics, he said, bucking the trend and welcoming others is part of “a commitment to becoming ever more faithful to our being ‘catholic,'” or universal.
Catholics, he said, are called to work together “to make the church become ever more inclusive as she carries out the mission entrusted to the Apostles by Jesus Christ” to proclaim the Gospel and care for those in need.
“In our day,” the pope said, “the church is called to go out into the streets of every existential periphery in order to heal wounds and to seek out the straying, without prejudice or fear, without proselytizing, but ready to widen her tent to embrace everyone.”
The global movement of people, he said, means “our societies will have a ‘colorful’ future, enriched by diversity and by cultural exchanges. Consequently, we must even now learn to live together in harmony and peace.”
“We must make every effort to break down the walls that separate us and, in acknowledging our profound interconnection, build bridges that foster a culture of encounter,” the pope insisted.
Joining the Vatican news conference from England, Auxiliary Bishop Paul McAleenan of Westminster said people in wealthy nations that extract resources from poorer countries and contribute heavily to climate change must recognize “that we are not blameless” in causing people to flee their homes.
In response, he said, “the aim of the church is to welcome, protect and promote all, knowing that human life and well-being are at risk, not national security.”
Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said using the excuse of “we have to take care of our own first” will not work in ending the COVID-19 pandemic nor in stemming the flow of migration because of conflict, poverty or climate change.
“In an interconnected world, we must understand,” she said, that “we are all in the same boat.”
The problems are so intertwined that “it’s useless to think of our own citizens first and then others,” Sister Smerilli said. “If we want to help people overcome the difficulties in their homelands, we must think of everyone. We want to overcome this. We want all of us to overcome this. We want all of us to be better.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Updating the Litany of St. Joseph, approved in 1909, the Vatican has added seven invocations, including two that address the guardian of Jesus and husband of Mary as “support in difficulty” and “patron of refugees.”
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments published the additions May 1, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
The additions were approved by Pope Francis, the congregation said, and drew the new invocations mainly from modern papal texts about St. Joseph, including Pope Francis’ December apostolic letter proclaiming a Year of St. Joseph and St. John Paul II’s 1989 apostolic exhortation, “Redemptoris Custos” (“Protector of the Redeemer”).
Since Pope Francis wanted, as he wrote in his letter, “to increase our love for this great saint, to encourage us to implore his intercession and to imitate his virtues and his zeal,” the congregation said, it seemed appropriate to update the 112-year-old litany.
Providing only the Latin-language version of the invocations, the congregation said it would be up to bishops’ conferences to translate the phrases and to add others if St. Joseph is invoked by their people in a particular way.
The Latin phrases are: “Custos Redemptoris” (Protector of the Redeemer); “Serve Christi” (Servant of Christ); “Minister salutis” (Minister of salvation); “Fulcimen in difficultatibus” (Support in difficulty); “Patrone exsulum” (Patron of refugees); “Patrone afflictorum” (Patron of the afflicted); and “Patrone pauperum” (Patron of the poor).
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The sainthood causes of seven men and women — including the hermit Blessed Charles de Foucauld and the Indian martyr Devasahayam Pillai — cleared their final hurdle May 3 during an “ordinary public consistory,” a meeting of the pope, cardinals and promoters of sainthood causes that formally ends the sainthood process.
The meeting included a prayer, an affirmation that church law had been followed in preparing for the candidates’ declaration of sainthood and a formal request “in the name of Holy Mother Church” that Pope Francis set a date for the canonizations.
Speaking in Latin, Pope Francis approved the canonizations but said the date for the ceremony would have to be determined later, Vatican News reported, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Blessed Charles de Foucauld is undoubtedly the best known of the seven saints-to-be.
Pope Francis, in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” described Blessed de Foucauld as a “person of deep faith who, drawing upon his intense experience of God, made a journey of transformation toward feeling a brother to all.”
“Blessed Charles directed his ideal of total surrender to God toward an identification with the poor, abandoned in the depths of the African desert,” the pope wrote. “In that setting, he expressed his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being and asked a friend to ‘pray to God that I truly be the brother of all.’ He wanted to be, in the end, ‘the universal brother.’ Yet only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be the brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us.”
Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1858, Blessed de Foucauld strayed from the faith during his adolescence, but during a trip to Morocco, he saw how devoted Muslims were to their faith, which inspired him to return to the church.
He joined the Trappists, living in monasteries in France and in Syria, before seeking an even more austere life as a hermit. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1901, he lived among the poor and finally settled in Tamanrasset, Algeria. In 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders. His writings inspired the foundation, after his death, of the Little Brothers of Jesus and the Little Sisters of Jesus.
The martyr of India who will be declared a saint is Blessed Pillai, an 18th-century Catholic layman who was killed for refusing to refute his faith despite being brutally tortured.
Born to an upper-caste Hindu family in 1712 and given the name Neelakanda, Blessed Pillai became a trusted soldier of the Hindu king but later incurred his wrath for embracing Christianity. Baptized in May 1745, he was given the name Devasahayam, a Tamil rendering of the biblical name Lazarus.
He began preaching and converted his wife and others, which made many officials angry. He was arrested and sentenced to death in 1749, but just before he was sent to the gallows, the Hindu king canceled the execution order. Blessed Pillai remained imprisoned for three more years, enduring torture and public beatings and ridicule for refusing to renounce his faith before secretly being taken into the jungle and shot.
The others approved for canonization are:
– Blessed César de Bus, the France-born founder of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, a religious congregation dedicated to education, pastoral ministry and catechesis. Born in 1544, he died in 1607.
– Blessed Luigi Maria Palazzolo, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor. He was beatified by St. John XXIII in 1963. The sainthood causes of six members of the order who died in Congo in 1995 caring for victims of Ebola also are underway.
– Blessed Giustino Maria Russolillo, an Italian priest who founded the Society of Divine Vocations for men and the Vocationist Sisters. He was born in 1891 and died in 1955.
– Blessed Anna Maria Rubatto, founder of the order now known as the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto. She was born in Carmagnola, Italy, in 1844 and died in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1904.
– Blessed Maria Domenica Mantovani, co-founder and first superior general of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family. Born in 1862 in Castelletto di Brenzone, Italy, she dedicated her life to serving the poor and needy as well as assisting the sick and the elderly. She died in 1934.
SCRANTON – The Diocese of Scranton will celebrate its annual Mother’s Day Adoption Mass on Sunday, May 9, at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton. This liturgy prayerfully recognizes all mothers, with a special emphasis on adoptive and foster mothers. Bishop Joseph C. Bambera will be the principal celebrant.
The Mother’s Day Adoption Mass is open to the public. No reservations are required. Attendees will be required to wear properly fitting face coverings and follow physical distancing protocols established by the Cathedral of Saint Peter.
CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will broadcast the Mass live. A livestream will also be provided on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and across all Diocesan social media platforms.
Pope Francis has said that humanity is “built on mothers” and that their love is a cure for a world, which is so often divided and filled with bitterness. On May 9, please join us for the Mother’s Day Adoption Mass as we pray for mothers, near and far, including Mary, Mother of the Church.
SCRANTON – More than a year after the Vision 2020 Blueprint Process was introduced to parishioners in the Diocese of Scranton, the pastoral planning initiative remains underway. In fact, it is currently being used to assist several parish communities facing pastoral retirements and other challenges in the coming months.
Vision 2020 is a long range process aiming to look proactively at the realities of our local Church in the present moment while striving to meet the opportunities and challenges of the coming decade.
Many factors will prompt change across the Diocese of Scranton in the future. These factors include rapidly shifting population demographics, reduced numbers of parishioners active in their faith, parish financial challenges, parish infrastructure needs as well as a diminishing number of ordained priests to serve existing parishes.
“Our ongoing pastoral planning process in the Diocese is both important and necessary to have vibrant parishes and rich participation in the sacraments,” the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, said. “This process, at its very core, is about putting our relationship with Jesus first in our own lives and in the life of our Church. We must desire to help all people meet Christ and build God’s Kingdom – not our own.”
On Dec. 8, 2019, Bishop Bambera introduced the Vision 2020 Blueprint Process to every parish in the Diocese through a video homily played at all Masses. Since that time, pastors have met in their individual deaneries, Bishop Bambera led several regional sessions in communities before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Bishop provided a video presentation to other parishes that were not able to gather in large groups because of the coronavirus.
“Given our faithful people’s deep love of their churches, I fully understand the emotions many have regarding any type of pastoral planning process,” the bishop explained. “Change is always difficult but we must constantly evaluate how to best utilize our resources in order to focus on mission more than simply maintenance.”
The Diocese of Scranton is not alone in undertaking pastoral planning efforts. A worsening shortage of priests nationwide, among other factors, has many other Dioceses and Archdioceses undertaking similar measures.
Over the past half century, the number of priests across the U.S. has dropped by about 40 percent — from nearly 60,000 priests in 1970 to 35,513 in 2020, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The Diocese of Scranton currently has 112 active priests, of which 92 are pastors. Based on projections of known retirement ages and historical trends, the Diocese projects that in 2030, the Diocese of Scranton will have only 69 active priests and the possibility of 49 pastors.
“We must be realistic in looking at all of the data, not just in the number of priests but all factors that might prompt change and response. Demographic studies have consistently shown that many areas of the northeast are experiencing a decline in population, including the eleven counties of the Diocese of Scranton. As such, many of our parishes are faced with far more funerals than baptisms. There is an urgency in this moment and a need to be creative and bold. We must continue to evangelize and spread the Good News of Jesus, welcome new immigrants and families into our parishes and focus on fostering vocations to the priesthood and religious life in our Diocese. For example, when is the last time that you heard someone in a parish say to a young man, have you ever thought of being a priest? We need more conversations like that taking place,” the bishop explained.
One important aspect of the Vision 2020 Blueprint Process is there will not be a one-size-fits-all approach. Different things will prompt changes in various parishes and deaneries at different times.
In order to better serve the mission of the Church, some of the possible changes that parishes might experience would be partnerships with neighboring parishes, linked parishes, alternative types of parish leadership (such as a Parish Life Coordinator) as well as potential merger or closure.
“As a Diocese, we have risen to meet the challenges and the needs for change in the past. Unlike previous pastoral planning processes, implementation will be approached gradually as needs arise,” Bishop Bambera added. “As members of this local Church, we must all acknowledge the social and demographic factors that will require change and we must all work together to best live out our baptismal calling.”
Vision 2020 Blueprint Process Being Utilized with Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Weston
Parishioners of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Weston were recently notified the weekend of April 10/11, 2021, of the planned retirement of their longtime pastor, Rev. Patrick D. McDowell, in June 2021. In a letter sent to parishioners, Father McDowell explained how the pastoral and sacramental needs of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish community would be served going forward.
After looking at many factors, including with input from members of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish Pastoral Council, the decision has been made to consolidate the parish of Sacred Heart of Jesus into the parish of Saint John Bosco, Conyngham. This means that the territory and pastoral care responsibility of Saint John Bosco Parish, its pastor and pastoral leaders, will now include all of the households previously served by Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, Weston.
A small working team with representatives from both parishes will be assembled to assist with the planning needed to make a smooth adjustment.
Vision 2020 Blueprint Process Being Utilized with Holy Family Parish, Sugar Notch
Parishioners of Holy Family Parish in Sugar Notch were recently notified the weekend of April 24/25, 2021, of the planned retirement of their longtime pastor, Rev. Joseph R. Kakareka, in September 2021. In a letter to parishioners published in the parish bulletin, Father Kakareka explained how the pastoral and sacramental needs of the Holy Family Parish community would be served going forward.
Utilizing the Vision 2020 Blueprint Process which takes into account the long range needs of the entire Diocese, after consulting the pastoral and finance councils of Holy Family Parish and pending the outcome of the necessary canonical processes, Bishop Bambera will follow the recommendation of the priests of the Wilkes-Barre deanery and consolidate Holy Family Parish with Saint Leo Parish, Ashley. The parish territory of Holy Family Parish will become the parish territory of Saint Leo Parish, whose pastor will have full ministerial care for all parishioners of the newly-consolidated parish.
A small working team with representatives from both parishes will be assembled this summer to assist with the planning needed to make a smooth transition.
SCRANTON – During the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of Catholic communications was extremely important. Many people have relied on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton for Daily and weekend Masses.
On the weekend of May 15 & 16, 2021, the Diocese of Scranton will hold its special collection in support of the Catholic Communication Campaign. This campaign connects people with Christ and builds Catholic communities in the United States and developing countries using the internet, television, radio and print media.
The Catholic Communication Campaign helps people tell their stories of God’s transformative mercy. By supporting the campaign, you participate in bringing these important stories to life!
Half of the money collected remains in the Diocese of Scranton to fund local communication efforts, including the Daily Mass broadcasts and other local programming and specials on CTV: Catholic Television as well as the publication of The Catholic Light. Your support helps spread the Gospel message.
We thank you for your generosity toward the Catholic Communication Campaign!
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee April 20 called on the Biden administration to fund research “that does not rely upon body parts taken from innocent children killed through abortion.”
“The bodies of children killed by abortion deserve the same respect as that of any other person,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
“Our government has no right to treat innocent abortion victims as a commodity that can be scavenged for body parts to be used in research,” he said.
His remarks were a reaction to a notice the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, posted April 16 in the grants area of its website announcing the end of a Trump administration ban on research involving human fetal tissue acquired from elective abortions.
In addition, NIH and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will no longer convene the Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board.
Under President Donald Trump, the two agencies had established the board to review research applications for NIH grants, cooperative agreements, and research and development contracts that proposed using fetal tissue from elective abortions.
The previous administration also terminated contracts with outside institutions that used fetal stem cells for research.
According to Roll Call, a news outlet on Capitol Hill, the decision to lift the ban came after 26 House Democrats wrote to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, urging this policy change.
“It is unethical to promote and subsidize research that can lead to legitimizing the violence of abortion,” Archbishop Naumann said in his statement. “Researchers have demonstrated that we can do effective scientific research and develop efficacious clinical treatments without harvesting tissue from aborted babies.”
“It is also deeply offensive,” he added, “to millions of Americans for our tax dollars to be used for research that collaborates with an industry built on the taking of innocent lives.”
Other pro-life reaction to NIH’s announcement included a statement from Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, the sister organization of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund.
He said the Biden administration’s decision to “fund research that requires aborted fetal tissue (is) very disappointing.”
“This type of experimental research is a gross violation of human dignity and is not where the majority of Americans want their tax dollars being spent,” McClusky said. “The government has no business creating a marketplace for aborted baby body parts.”
It is a move in the wrong direction, agreed Tara Sander Lee, senior fellow and director of life sciences at Charlotte Lozier Institute, which is the research and education arm of the Susan B. Anthony List.
“There are superior and ethical alternatives available such as adult stem-cell models being used by countless scientists worldwide to develop and produce advanced medicines treating patients now, without exploitation of any innocent life,” she said. “All scientists should reject the administration’s attempts to prey on fears related to the pandemic to advance the practice of harvesting fetal tissue.”
“Pro-abortion Democrats push this deeply unpopular agenda at their own political peril,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List.
The HHS ban on NIH using human fetal stem cells in research announced June 5, 2020, came after an audit and review of its own research involving human fetal tissue and elective abortions. Regarding contracts with outside institutions, HHS refused to renew a $13 million research contract with the University of California, San Francisco, because it failed to live up to it moral and ethical standards.
In 2019 alone, NIH spent $120 million on fetal tissue of unborn babies, according to a news release issued by HHS at the time.
Meanwhile in Congress, ahead of the April 16 announcement by NIH, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., spoke during debate on a bill to reauthorize the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005. Smith was the prime sponsor of the 2005 bill and of a bill to reauthorize it in 2015.
The new law created a nationwide umbilical cord blood stem-cell program, designed to collect, derive, type and freeze cord blood units for transplantation into patients to mitigate “and to even cure serious disease,” Smith said April 14.
“Pursuant to the law, it also provided stem cells for research” he said, adding that new cord blood program was combined with an expanded bone marrow initiative, whose main sponsor was the late Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla.
The reauthorization bill for the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act authorizes $23 million to be appropriated for fiscal year 2021 through fiscal year 2025. It also authorizes $30 million to be appropriated for fiscal years 2021 through 2025 for the bone marrow transplant program.
“This continues funding at the same levels authorized in the 2015 authorization bill,” Smith said.
“Each year, nearly 4 million babies are born in America. In the past, virtually every placenta and umbilical cord was tossed as medical waste,” Smith said in his comments on the floor. “Today, doctors have turned this medical waste into medical miracles.”
“Not only has God in his wisdom and goodness created a placenta and umbilical cord to nurture and protect the precious life of an unborn child,” he continued, “but now we know that another gift awaits us immediately after birth. Something very special is left behind — cord blood that is teeming with lifesaving stem cells.”
According to Smith, one of “the best kept secrets in America” is “umbilical cord blood stem cells and adult stem cells in general are curing people of a myriad of terrible conditions and diseases — over 70 diseases in adults as well as in children.”