Catholic san Francisco Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper Archbishop Niederauer asks for affirmation of the catechumens’s readiness. See Archbishop Niederauer’s Rite of Election Homily on page 12.
From Holy Angels Church in Colma candidate Elizabeth Chan with her sponsor Nicholas Gozen.
(PHOTOS BY JOSE AGUIRRE)
At St. Mary’s Cathedral Feb. 10, cathechumens were presented to Archbishop Niederauer by Sister Celeste Arbuckle, Director of the Office of Religious Education and Youth Ministry. At left, Catechumen Noelania Mendez of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Redwood City signs the book of the elect with her godmother Marisol Silva assisted by Sister Norberta Villaseñor. At right, members of RCIA seen with books of the elect.
Conference speakers take the long view at stem cell research conference expectations are based on the much-publicized success of experiments in California, Wisconsin and Japan to Stem-cell research is making faster progress than scienderive therapeutically potent stem cells without having tists expected but faces a long road of technical hurdles and to destroy human embryos. ethical considerations, experts in the field told a conference The experiments suggest that large quantities of stem at Dominican University of California in San Rafael. cells could be harvested in an ethical fashion from skin “It will take much more than 10 years to see it all through cells, human eggs and other non-embryonic sources. and really understand what the full promise of stem-cell The hope is that scientists can learn to program these research will be,” Gilbert Sambrano, the senior officer in cells to repair diseased tissue. charge of peer review at the California Institute But presenters at the conference said these for Regenerative Medicine, said in his keynote successes are just a first step. They said scien‘It will take much more than 10 years to see tists must better understand what goes on in address at the Feb. 9 conference. Stem-cell research is moving cautiously the first few days of an embryo’s development but broadly in public and commercial labs in it all through and really understand what the before they can engineer safe and effective California and other states, presenters said. stem-cell lines. “There’s a lot of momentum in the business full promise of stem-cell research will be.’ Renee Reijo Pera, professor and director environment going toward stem-cell studies,” of the Center for Human Embryonic Stem said Warren Hoeffler, founder of Xgene Corp., Cell Research and Education at Stanford a biotech startup. “There’s no turning back.” “The embryonic stem cells were enormously over- Medical School, said scientists are largely in the dark However, the conference dampened expectations promised to get this funding, and now they’re having to about how the early embryo draws energy from the that most patients will see any immediate benefit. For backtrack,” he said. mother’s egg to weave the complicated chemical codRichard Doerflinger, associate director of pro-life activThe conference, co-presented by the university and ing that will dictate the development of the individual ities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Zero Breast Cancer, took place amid ever-higher expec- into adulthood. cautious tone now being expressed by many scientists tations that cell transplantation therapies are on the ”We know we can make these lines of cells but can shows that the field is backing away from its promise to verge of bringing new hope to patients suffering from we efficiently direct the decisions to make a specific deliver a host of cell therapies to combat disease. STEM CELL CONFERENCE, page 4 devastating diseases that are untreatable with drugs. The
By Rick DelVecchio
California voters backed those promises in 2004 by passing Proposition 71, which created the $3 billion California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. But Doerflinger maintained that Proposition 71 wrongly led scientists to focus on human embryonic stem cells, which are obtained from excess or rejected early-stage human embryos generated by in vitro fertilization, as the foundation for research into multiple disease cures.
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION
Sister Nancy Murray plays ‘Catherine of Siena’ ~ Page 3 ~ February 15, 2008
Riordan’s Rob Jones overcomes “Johnstown” tragedy ~ Page 5 ~
USF students witness Cambodia’s pain
‘On the Street’ . . . . . . . . . . 2 Senior living ads . . . . . . . 6-9 Columnists. . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Classified ads . . . . . . . 18-19 Anniversary Mass. . . . . . . 20
~ Pages 10-11 ~
NEXT ISSUE FEB. 29
SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS
VOLUME 10
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No. 6