Williams Catholic Group Sponsors Talk on Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 9, 2004 – Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., a Catholic priest, will speak on “The Science and Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning.” The talk is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 8 p.m. in Griffin Hall, room 3. The talk is geared toward a lay audience.

He will present the science involved in the procedures for extracting stem cells and for cloning. Different types of stem cells and of human cloning will be distinguished. Following presentation of basic biology, Pacholczyk will discuss the moral objections people may have to some of the procedures as well as which ones might be most efficient scientifically for curing potential diseases. He will also discuss the debate on the role between science and morality and whether the Catholic Church’s moral opposition to embryonic stem cell research and human cloning is based on sound science or on “a theology of the possible delayed ensoulment of the embryo.”

He has testified before the Massachusetts and Wisconsin state legislatures concerning a bill to ban human cloning. He serves on the ethics committee for St. Anne’s Hospital and Caritas Christi Health Care System, Fall River, Mass. He is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, Mass., where he is parochial vicar of St. Patrick’s Church in Falmouth on Cape Cod.

Pacholczyk earned two degrees in advanced theology and ethics at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where the church sends promising priestly candidates for training. Before his ordination at age 34, he completed postdoctoral work at Harvard University in neuroscience, and earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Yale. He holds undergraduate degrees in molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and philosophy from the University of Arizona.

The lecture is sponsored by the Williams Catholic organization.

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Published February 18, 2004