c. 2000 Religion News Service

Well-known Ethicist Among Defendants in Suit After Gene Therapy Death

(RNS) Ethicist Arthur Caplan has been named among the defendants in a suit filed Monday (Sept. 18) by the family of an Arizona teen-ager who was the first person to die from gene therapy.

The well-known director of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania was named along with the research team involved in the experiment involving 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger of Tucson, The Washington Post reported. The complaint was filed a year and a day after he died on Sept. 17, 1999.

The suit, filed in state court in Philadelphia, was based on revelations of serious lapses in science and regulation concerning the experiment that aimed to give corrective genes to people suffering from a rare liver disorder.

Caplan declined to comment on the suit, but other ethicists said they could not remember any other time when one of their colleagues was named in a lawsuit alleging what amounts to moral negligence.

His inclusion in the complaint suggests that other ethicists could be subject to suits over the philosophical guidance they offer researchers.

The suit argues that the defendants, including the biotech firm Genovo Inc., founded by lead scientist James Wilson, acted fraudulently, recklessly or negligently in recruiting and treating Gelsinger. His family seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.

Attorney Alan Milstein, who is representing the family, said Caplan helped the researchers write the informed-consent form that was supposed to explain the risks to experiment participants.

“The informed-consent document in no way informed Jesse and his family as to the true nature of the risks,” the lawyer said.

In a written statement, the university admitted there were “weaknesses” in its research program but said “the university continues to believe that these weaknesses did not contribute to Jesse’s death,” the Post reported.

The school is negotiating with the Gelsingers about a possible settlement.

State Department Urges China to Release Jailed Catholic Bishop

(RNS) The State Department on Monday (Sept. 18) asked China to immediately release a Roman Catholic bishop arrested last week for unauthorized religious activities.

Zeng Jingmu, a bishop of Yu Jiang in the Jiangxi province of eastern China, was taken into custody on Thursday (Sept. 14), according to the U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation. The foundation supports the Chinese Catholic Church, considered an “underground” church by Beijing.

“The persecution of an 81-year-old clergyman who has already spent more than 30 years in prison is unacceptable and violates commitments China has made under international human rights covenants,” the State Department said in a statement, the Associated Press reported.

Zeng had been living under house arrest in Jiangxi since being released from a labor camp in May 1998, the foundation reported. He had been sent there in 1995 for holding unauthorized religious services.

China has repeatedly come under fire from the State Department for its treatment of religious groups. A department report on international religious freedom released early in September chastized China for its treatment of members of minority faiths as well as Tibetan Buddhists and followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

China maintains that police arrest members of unregistered religious groups because they threaten public peace.

Vatican Reshuffle Changes List of Prelates Eligible to Become Pope

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has accepted the resignation of the Brazilian cardinal who heads the Vatican Congregation for Bishops and named a high-ranking Italian prelate from the Secretariat of State to the powerful post.

The Vatican’s announcement Saturday (Sept. 16) of the changes in the makeup of the Roman Curia, the Roman Catholic Church’s administrative bodies, also changed the list of prelates considered eligible for election as the next pope.

Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, who turned 75 on Saturday and suffers from diabetes, offered his resignation for “reasons of age and health,” the Vatican said. He also resigned as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The pope chose Italian Archbishop Giovanni Battista Re, to succeed Moreira Neves. Re, 66, who held diplomatic posts in Panama and Iran, was the cardinal’s deputy for two years before the pope named him to the No. 2 job in the Secretariat of State in 1989.

As assistant secretary of state for general affairs, Re was in charge of the Vatican’s daily business, coordinating operations of the curia, drafting documents and supervising the Vatican Press Office and Central Statistics Office.

The pope appointed Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, 57, an Argentine canon lawyer and diplomat, to succeed Re in the Secretariat of State. Sandri has been the papal nuncio (ambassador) to Mexico since March.

Re, a highly effective administrator considered a conservative on church doctrine, will now head the Vatican’s second most important department, ranking just behind the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. He is believed to be in line to become prefect of that congregation when its current head, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, retires.

The Congregation for Bishops deals directly with conferences of Catholic bishops throughout the world, oversees the conduct of bishops and reviews and submits to the pope nominations for new bishops.

As prefect, Re automatically will be elevated to the College of Cardinals at the Consistory the pope is expected to call immediately after Holy Year ends. Others expected to receive the cardinal’s red berretta include Edward Egan, 69, the new archbishop of New York.

Re’s new post places him on the select list of cardinals, believed to be in the running to be elected pope after the death of the 80-year-old John Paul.

Moreira Neves, a descendant of African slaves, who served as president of Brazil’s Conference of Bishops before becoming a ranking member of the Curia, had been considered a strong contender for the papacy until he became ill.

English Catholic Leader Urges Court to Listen to Parents in Siamese Case

(RNS) In a submission to the Court of Appeal in the “tragic and heartrending case” of the Siamese twins born at Manchester on Aug. 8, Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster said there were five “over-arching” moral considerations why the parents’ wishes should be respected and no operation to separate the twins should go ahead.

It is widely assumed that if the operation to separate the twins is performed, one of them would die.

O’Connor also raised the question “whether, were Jodie (one of the twins) to survive separation, subsequent surgical and other care for her would impose excessive burdens both on Jodie and on the parents.”

Citing a 1997 case when the Court of Appeal ruled that it would not be in a boy’s best interests to have a liver transplant despite “unanimous medical evidence” that with it he would enjoy many years of normal life and that without it he would die, the archbishop said: “Though the Court should recognize the lethal consequence for Mary of separation surgery as a decisive reason for respecting parental refusal of consent to it, weight should also be given to the likely burdensome consequences of surgery for Jodie and her parents.”

The five considerations O’Connor cited were:

_ The sacredness and inviolability of human life;

_ “A person’s bodily integrity should not be invaded when the consequences of doing so are of no benefit to that person,” especially if the consequences were foreseeably lethal;

_ No duty to preserve life exists when the only available means involved a grave injustice, in this case killing one of the twins;

_ “There is no duty to adopt particular therapeutic measures to preserve life when these are likely to impose excessive burdens on the patient” or the patient’s caregivers;

_ “Respect for the natural authority of parents requires that the courts override the rights of parents only when there is clear evidence that they are acting contrary to what is strictly owing to their children.”

The Court of Appeal, which began hearing the case on Sept. 4 following the decision of a High Court judge that the parents’ wishes should be overruled and the twins should be separated even though this meant one of them would die, is expected to give its verdict on Friday (Sept. 22).

Revivalist Ruth Ward Heflin Dead at 60

(RNS) Revivalist Ruth Ward Heflin, known for her role in the so-called “gold dust” revival involving churches across the globe, died Friday (Sept. 15) at a Richmond, Va., hospital.

Heflin, who had suffered from cancer for several months, was 60.

A descendant of Great Awakening preacher Jonathan Edwards, Heflin had been in ministry for almost 40 years, reported Charisma News Service, a news service of Charisma magazine.

She directed the Calvary Pentecostal Campground in Ashland, Va., which was founded by her parents in the 1950s and later led by her brother, Wallace, who died in 1997.

The campground, which holds revival services and conferences for tens of thousands of visitors each year, became known for reports of gold dust appearing on people. Others claimed to have teeth being filled with gold.

The reports began in 1998 when Heflin hosted the Brazilian evangelist Silvania Machado. Since that time the phenomenon has been reported in other parts of the United States and abroad.

Heflin founded the Mount Zion Fellowship, an international prayer ministry, in Jerusalem and lived there for more than 25 years.

Harold McDougal, a trustee of the campground and publisher of Heflin’s books, said her greatest legacy was her focus on worship.

“She was a worshipper and someone who led others into worship,” he told Charisma News Service.

British Churches Urged to Practical, Spiritual Care of the Earth

(RNS) British churches and individual Christians have been urged to take practical and spiritual steps to care for the environment.

The call came Tuesday (Sept. 19) at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with the start of an ecumenical “eco-congregation” program aiming to bring the environmental movement into local congregations.

“I believe that Christians have a sacred duty to care for God’s creation and that they cannot simply sit idly by while problems like pollution and waste ravage his planet,” said Graham Ashworth, president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Anglican Bishop Richard Chartres of London and the Rev. Arthur Roche, general secretary of the Catholic bishops conference of London and Wales also endorsed the effort.

Among the initiatives encouraged by the new campaign are “green” burials in woodland sites using cardboard coffins, with wild flowers marking the grave rather than gravestones, and ways of using energy less wastefully. The campaign comes at a time when the country’s dependence on oil and gasoline has been highlighted by the recent blockade of oil refineries and distribution depots.

Quote of the Day: Russian President Vladimir Putin:

(RNS) “The spiritual revival of our country is impossible without understanding that Russian culture is made up of the rich traditions of all the people who have been living on its territory for ages.”

_ Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking Monday (Sept. 18) at the opening of a new Jewish community center in Moscow. He was quoted by the Associated Press.

DEA END RNS