Firstly re #479: Sources in Vietnam (our own)
suggest that CWN have it wrong! Fr. Nguyen Van Ly is not a Salesian and we
have no work in Hue. So for us, I guess, that's good news. Pity
about Fr. Ly though!
AUSSIE SALESIAN BRINGS SOME SENSE - AND SOME KEY
PLAYERS - TO THE EMBRYO DEBATE
Julian Fox
MELBOURNE - 19th May -- This coming week a major
symposium on Human embryo research, manipulation and ethics will be hosted at
the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics. The host and Director of
the Centre, Dr. (Fr.) Norman Ford SDB has cobbled together some of the key
players in the debate which has always held a certain prominence, almost one of
origin in the city of Melbourne, since it was there, 15 or more years ago, that
Alan Trounson and others rose to world prominence for their experimentation with
in vitro fertilization.
It was those same people and issues that led the
Melbourne Church at the time to ask Fr. Ford, already a distinguished
philosopher in his own field, to tackle the ethical minefields laid by the
experimentation.
Fr. Ford, recently awarded a Fellowship of the
Melbourne College fo Divinity precisely for his ability to remain in dialogue
with and gain respect from these scientists and doctors, has brought them
together once again in the Centre which he now directs. Alan Trounson, now
Director of the Centre for Early Human Development, will address the symposium
on Human Embryo Research, while Dr. Paul Simmons, Head of the Stem Cell
Laboratory at Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, will speak about the alternative
of somatic stem cell use.
Fr. Ford himself, on the 24th May, a day rather
special to himself, the Salesians, and Australia (Feast of Mary Help of
Christians, Patroness of Australia), will provide ethical perspectives developed
in the light of the Church's teaching and from many years of productive research
and dialogue with ethicists and medical practitioners around the
world.
