Southern bishops excommunicate pro-choice politicians

This just in from the Polish Prince via the "Episcopal Spine of Steel Alert" at Ad Limina Apostolorum: Three southern bishops (pictured, left-to-right, the Most Reverend Peter J. Jugis, Bishop of Charlotte; the Most Reverend Robert J. Baker, Bishop of Charleston, SC; and the Most Reverend John F. Donoghue, Archbishop of Atlanta) issued the following Joint Statement:

"Because of the influence that Catholics in public life have on the conduct of our daily lives and on the formation of our nation's future, we declare that Catholics serving in public life espousing positions contrary to the teaching of the Church on the sanctity and inviolability of human life, especially those running for or elected to public office are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in any Catholic church within our jurisdictions: the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Dioceses of Charleston and Charlotte. Only after reconciliation with the Church has occurred, with the knowledge and consent of the local bishop, and public disavowal of former support for procured abortion, will the individual be permitted to approach the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

We undertake this action to safeguard the sacred dignity of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, to reassure the faithful, and to save sinners."

(When bishops will be bishops, peace will once again be restored to the Church. Thank God for such bishops. Thank you, bishops!)

Bobby Bowden on education & discipline

FSU coach Bobby Bowden in a recent interview offered some interesting remarks on education:

"These kids that we get nowadays, they come in and do this wrong. You shouldn't steal. You shouldn't do this. Their parents have got to teach them that. And it's got to be done when they're 2, 3, 4, 5 years of age. And kids aren't getting that anymore because the daddies ain't home. The daddies are all gone. And a boy needs discipline. He needs discipline from a male. Not a mama. They all want to wear earrings like their mama. They all want to look like their mama. Because their mama is raising them."

Q. Do you still feel like you relate to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds?

"I don't believe in a lot of things they're doing now. I sure don't believe a lot of things they're doing. But I'm sure I could talk to them about it, and I do, in certain circumstances. They (say), 'Well everybody else is doing it. Everybody else is doing it.' Yeah. But the Book says you can't do that, son. The Book has said for 2,000 years that you can't do that."

Q. When kids come in and do things wrong, some people attribute that to the star treatment they get at programs. Bit programs like yours, even.

"It's probably true. A lot of that is true. There's no doubt about it. A lot of our problems are perpetuated by us coaches. We baby them. We give them this and we give them that. When I went to college, nobody told me to take English. Nobody told me what courses to take. Nobody told me where the library was. Nobody ever told me any of that stuff. But now we get their classes for them and we check and see if they went to class. I think we're probably our biggest enemy sometimes."

Sushi, sex, and the conundrums of logic

Sushi, or in the properly honorific Japanese tongue, o-sushi, is quite probably my favorite culinary delight in the world. There is no gustatory presentation quite so artful or appealing, and no cuisine quite so delectable, in my opinion, as o-sushi. The combination of flavors -- the faint tangy scent of sweetened rice vinegar in the rice, the slight green rub of grated wasabi root (somewhat reminiscent of our horse radish) between the rice and the raw fish, the touch of Kikkoman shoyu (soy sauce) in the dipping saucer, laced with a light suspension of (yet again, more!) grated wasabi, followed by a pinch of pink, gossamer-thin sliced, sweet, pickled ginger root, and a chaser of gently warmed o-sake (rice wine), is almost enough to induce something close to orgasmic delight. There is an art, of course, to dining on o-sushi. Fingers are permissible, though only philistines would think of using silverware. The preferred utensils are o-hashi (chopsticks). One who has mastered the art of sushi-eating is expected to pick up a piece of nigiri-zushi (the kind of sushi that consists of a hand formed morsel of rice with a slice of raw fish on it), dip it into the small saucer or soy sauce, then deftly place it into his mouth, yet maintain his composure at the moment when the combined sensations explode within his oral cavity to induce such a paroxysm of pleasure that any lesser person would be unable to contain himself. Under no circumstance must he allow himself to lose control, lose his composure, or fall out of his seat and writhe upon the floor in an uncontrolled exhibition of delirious ecstasy. That is considered altogether unseemly.

In fact, there is a logical syllogism that has long puzzled epicures, who happen to be acquainted with the delights of both sushi and sex, which goes like this:

• Nothing is better than sex.
• Sushi is better than nothing.
• Therefore, sushi is better than sex.

Think on that one for a while, you liver-mush lovers!

Teachers' salaries: disrespectful pay

The last time the faculty members at Lenoir-Rhyne College were granted a significant pay hike was after I petitioned the administration for permission to supplement my income by bagging groceries at Winn Dixie, a local grocery store. I don't know if there is any relation between my petition to bag groceries and our pay hike, but I do think the coincidence -- if that's what it was -- is interesting. For some ten years before that the faculty had endured a virtual salary freeze precipitated by the fiscal mismanagement of the administration in the 1980s. This put the faculty about a decade behind where it should have been by the 1990s. In fact, when the wife of one of my colleagues retired from teaching at a local elementary school just a few years ago, she was earning more than her husband who was a full professor with a Ph.D. nearing the end of his career.

What do public school teachers make? Dave Eggers in the May/June issue of Mother Jones writes:

"The latest statistics put the average teacher's salary at about $46,000; some teachers earn a little more, some a little less (the average teacher's salary -- not the starting salary -- is $38,000 in Kansas, $36,000 in New Mexico, and $32,000 in South Dakota). Overall, that's about the same that we pay pile-driver operators ($45,980) and about $8,000 less than the average elevator repairman pulls down. Meanwhile, a San Francisco dockworker makes about $115,000, while the clerk who logs shipping records into the longshoreman's computer makes $136,000."

But the really interesting thing is that my colleague, a professor near the end of his teaching career at Lenoir-Rhyne College, was making less than his wife was making as a second grade public school teacher. In Eggers' Mother Jones article, entitled "Reading, Writing, and Landscaping," he seeks to address the scandal of such disproportionate inequities:

"The first step to creating an education system full of the best teachers we can find is to pay them in line with their importance to their communities. We pay orthodontists an average of $350,000, and no one would say that their impact on the lives of kids is greater than a teacher's. But it seems difficult for everyone, from parents to politicians, to shake free of a tradition in which teaching was seen as something of a volunteer project for women whose husbands brought home the real money. Today's teachers need to, but very often can't, support a family on their salaries. They find it difficult or impossible to buy homes, to save money, to live comfortably, and, in wealthier areas, to live in or near the towns where they teach."

Eggers recalls how his sixth-grade math teacher in the 1970s was also a licensed travel agent, and seeing a number of his high school teachers, all with master's degrees or Ph.D.'s, painting houses and cutting lawns during the summer. "This kind of thing still happens all over the country," says Eggers, "and it's a disgrace":

"When teachers are forced to tend the yards of students' homes, to clean houses, or to sell stereos on nights and weekends, the quality of education is diminished, the profession is disrespected, and we parody the notion that we hold our schools and teachers in the highest regard. Teachers with two and three jobs are tired, their families are frustrated, and the students they teach, who want to -- and should -- consider their instructors exalted figures, learn instead to think of teaching as a part-time gig, the day job for the guy who sells Game Boys at Circuit City."

Turn down the lights!

In the May 2004 issue of Crisis magazine, Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker have an article entitled "Fourteen Easy Ways to Improve the Liturgy." In many ways an excellent article, it offers a number of insightful observations on the following fourteen suggestions:

1. Turn down the volume.
2. Chant for a prelude.
3. Curb the announcements.
4. Choose plain, traditional hymns for the processional.
5. Sing the Kyrie.
6. Choose a plainer Gloria.
7. Fix the Psalm.
8. The Offertory should be a time of preparation.
9. Reduce and simplify the 'Mystery of Faith' and the 'Great Amen.'
10. Shorten the Sign of Peace.
11. Begin the communion chant (a simple Latin hymn will do) after the priest receives.
12. Don't force people to sing during communion.
13. Allow for silence after communion.
14. Don't attempt a rousing good-bye.
    

In the course of elaborating upon these fourteen suggestions, the authors offer many very significant insights and helpful suggestions. I would recommend the article as something that could be shared profitably with any priest and music director.

But I would add a further suggestion of my own:

• Turn down the lights.

This may seem a rather odd and trifling suggestion until one begins to examine it. Anyone who has wandered into inner city churches and cathedrals (whether in the United States, Ireland, Britain, or Europe) at odd times of day will know that they are not usually brightly illumined as suburban American churches are during Masses. Rather, they are usually dim. The only source of light, other than the natural light from the (usually stained glass) windows, is the Tabernacle light, easily spotted as a pinprick of light emanating from the vicinity of the Altar, and perhaps a flickering bank of votive candles, glowing amidst the richly mysterious gloom. By contrast, when they turn on the lights in most suburban American Catholic churches today the lights are so harshly bright that they could serve to illumine a surgical operating room.

In my own parish, I am accustomed to going early to church with my wife, arriving in time to participate in praying a group Rosary in front of the Blessed Sacrament before Mass. The interior of the church, at this point, is still shrouded in a comforting darkness, with only the Tabernacle light signaling the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament near the Altar. Throughout the Rosary, the interior of the church remains thus hushed in relative darkness and quiet, but for the antiphonally recited prayers of the Rosary.

As the Rosary nears its end, people begin filing into the church (in cannot be called the nave, as it is one of those post-Vatican II structures practically built in the round), and suddenly it happens: the klieg lights are thrown on. The whole interior of the church is suddenly bathed in harsh light -- a light that casts out all shadow, and, with it, all mystery, all quietude. It is as if Channel 9 Action News has entered the sanctuary with its carbon arc lamps and cameras and brought the whole secular world from outside in with it.

But there is something else I notice. Something else is lost: the orientation and focus of worship. Before the lights are thrown on, the focus is where it belongs: up where Christ Himself is uniquely Present, where His Presence is signaled by the Tabernacle light and His place of Sacrifice is signaled by the illuminated Altar. The focus is not on those of us who are back in our pews saying the Rosary. We remain shrouded in shadow, only our voices rising out of the darkness to attest to our presence. But the moment the bright klieg lights are thrown on, everything is changed. The whole interior of the church illuminated like a stage -- not only that part of it containing the Altar and Tabernacle, which used to be called the Sanctuary, but that part of it containing the pews and parishioners, which used to be called the Nave. Traditionally the Communion Rail marked the boundary dividing the Sanctuary from the Nave; but this boundary has disappeared from most American Catholic churches along with most other boundaries demarcating any division between the sacred and the profane. And the bright contemporary illumination of the whole interior of churches is another instance of this erasure of boundaries. And notice what happens: when everything is equally bathed in uniform white light, the neck of the person sitting i front of you, with all of its creases, warts, and freckles, is as brightly illumined as the Tabernacle or the priest at the Altar. The result? A loss of orientation and focus.

Tolkien's advice to disgruntled traditionalists

In a letter to his son, Michael Tolkien, dated November 1, 1963, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "I can recommend this as an exercise: make your Communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children -- from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn -- open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to Communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same as a Mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand -- after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)" (Gratia tibi, Video meliora)

Doubtless this is good advice. One has no choice but to take Tolkien's advice to heart if one is to survive spiritually as a Catholic today. Even what passes generally for a properly executed Novus Ordo liturgy is an affront, not only to my tastes, mind you, but to my sense of fidelity to what it means to be Catholic. It's not merely a matter of putting up with what Thomas Day calls "the triumph of bad taste" in Catholic culture, but with the pervasive theological rot of fashionable dissent, which, so much the worse, doesn't even understand itself as mischievous. But prayer for tasteless philistines as well as prayer for the heretical is, I'm quite sure, as good for the one praying in sincerity as for the one for whom the prayer is offered. While we're at it, let us also remember in our prayers Master Tolkien himself, with gratitude and hope.

Policy suggestions for the Church

In the June 2004 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, Joseph A. Varacalli has an article entitled "Policy suggestions for the Church." He spends the first half of the article discussing the processes of "secularization from within" that have occurred at almost all levels of the Church, then, after briefly entertaining differing interpretations of what to do, turns his attention to some concrete steps that can be taken toward reorienting the Catholic Church back in the right direction. Here is a summary, along with some excerpts [note: the numbering schema is my own]:

No. 1: Catholic (re-)education: "The most basic concrete suggestion is that the Catholic Church in this country should radically change priorities, in terms of its ministries and apostolates, which would entail a change in its allocatin of personnel and spending priorities. Outside of the administration of the sacraments, there must be an almost exclusive emphasis give to Catholic education, with the ultimate goal being to offer all interested Americans, Catholic or not, a free K-12 education for their children that is shaped by an authentic Catholic worldview." (emphasis added)

No. 2: Catechetical (re-)instruction: "Related to this, all parishes must emphasize, much more than they do now, catechetical instruction in the essentials of the faith not only for their parishioners but for any potentially interested citizen, Catholic or not."

No. 3: Multi-media campaign: "Related to and supporting this ... would be efforts -- vita such instruments as cable television, radio programming, and fre continuing educatin courses -- presenting the Catholic worldview on a wide range of topics and issues through disucssions of theology, philosophy, the popes, the saints, social thought, social science and history, and social and public policy. Diocesan newspapers must be transformed into more serious religious, intellectual and moral vehicles, both promoting and explaining the Catholic faith and what is has to offer the individual and society."

In response to the objection that the Catholic Church has many charitable social welfare programs to support, Varacalli responds by pointing out, quite matter-of-factly, that "the present weakened condition of the Church does not allow the Church to do everything for everybody." He continues:

No. 4: Re-Catholicize Catholic higher education: "It is not secret that the state of Catholic higher education, judged by authentic Catholic criteria, is close to abysmal. The number of smaller orthodox colleges, either started over the past few decades or that have come home to the bosom of Mother Church, while heartening, is not an adequate response. At least some of the sacred Catholic soil that has been occupied by the secular pretenders to the throne of Catholic education during the past decades must be recaptured."

No. 5: Establish a Catholic education agency: "Another concrete suggestion is to creat a nationwide Catholic educational agency composed of orthodox Catholic scholars from groups like the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the Cardinal Newman Society, and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists that is designed to help and serve those bishops concerned with the renewal of Catholic higher education."

No. 6: Host faithful para-Church groups: "... our functioning institutions must, of necessity, be asked to bear extra responsibilities and tasks that they were not originally intended to master. Alas, we must 'go into battle' with what we've got and what we've got are a few institutions, like Sacred Heart Major Seminary, which are fast heading back to Catholic orthodoxy. Such seminaries must be quickly expanded into developing liberal arts colleges and must also serve as 'hotbeds' of Catholic intellectual and evangelistic activity where faithful groups (e.g., Catholics United for the Faith, Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, etc.) must be invited to run their programs.

Now there's a plan of action worthy of, say, the Jesuits after the Protestant upheavel of the 16th century!

Bishops cop out on political issues

A few weeks ago, Deal Hudson (pictured left) said in his periodic e-letter that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was working on its presidential questionnaire. He noted that the Left-leaning USCCB might try to bury the pro-life questions in with a bunch of irrelevant issues... thereby hiding Senator John Kerry's extreme pro-abortion voting record. They did something similar with the 2000 presidential questionnaire (wherein, they actually let Al Gore get away with claiming to be "pro-life"!).

In his most recent e-letter, Hudson writes: "Unfortunately, it seems that the same thing is happening again this election. The questionnaires are with the candidates right now, but CRISIS [magazine] has been able to get an early look at the document." Here's what he reports:

First, the questionnaire makes no distinction between life issues -- clearly of primary importance to Catholics -- and particular policies
that the conference supports on issues as wide-ranging (and non-binding) as rural development, housing, and immigration.

The document has 41 questions, broken down into sections by topic. The largest single section of the questionnaire is on... immigration. Yes, immigration. That category gets a full six questions.

The next-largest section is education (five questions). Abortion gets a total of three questions (tied with aid to low income families).

In fact, in the entire questionnaire, only eight questions deal with life issues -- including abortion, capital punishment, physician-assisted suicide, cloning, and embryo research. Amazingly enough, the section on broadcast communication had more questions than any of the life sections except abortion and capital punishment.

But there's more.

The structure of the questions is such that they only ask for a "support/oppose" response, which says nothing about the particular details of a candidate's position. Nowhere is there room for the candidate to explain, say, why he voted for partial-birth abortion (as Kerry did) or voted against the Defense of Marriage Act (another
Kerry vote). In fact, neither are mentioned at all!

Of course, the conference did include this vital question:

"Will you support or oppose legislation to strengthen the reputation of broadcasters to ensure that they meet their public service broadcast license obligations?"

Look, it's not that I object to the questions per se. The problem is that they ignore the hierarchy in Catholic values and issues. Furthermore, this sweeping approach keeps the candidates -- particularly Kerry, who is almost always on the wrong side of the life issues -- from having to defend themselves or explain any of
their choices.

Once again, the bishops conference has mixed up prudential issues (like the particular points of broadcast law) with hard moral absolutes (like the ban on abortion). In doing so, they've given ardently pro-abortion candidates political cover.

Hopefully, when they eventually release the results of the questionnaire, the conference will include some kind of commentary that assigns real weight to the life issues. Without that, this document is simply deceptive.

(Gratia tibi, Deal Hudson.)

The Lord's Day? . . . Or Wal-Mart's?

"Once, within living memory, it was a day apart in many places: a 24-hour stretch of family time when liquor was unavailable, church was the rule, shopping was impossible and -- in some towns -- weekend staples like tending the lawn and playing in the park met with hearty disapproval. But America changed, and it dragged Sunday along with it ..." (Read more ... Gratiuas tibi, Earl Appleby, Times Against Humanity).



-- (Jean-Francois Millet, "The Angelus") --

Debating Darwin

For readers interested in intelligent design, a new book, Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, edited by William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse, is now available from Cambridge University Press, released July 2004, (424 pages, $45.00). Here's part of the official blurb on it:

William Dembski, Michael Ruse, and other prominent philosophers provide here a comprehensive balanced overview of the debate concerning biological origins--a controversial dialectic since Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859.

Michael Ruse, by the way, is an opponent of intelligent design, but on very good terms with those in the ID movement. (James Kushiner, Touchstone)

Vatican contra feminism

"One wonders if they actually bothered to read the document, or merely skimmed it for a "controversial" sentence or two about which they could rant," writes Christopher in Against the Grain:

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see the mainstream (secular) media's portrayal of the latest document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: 'Vatican says feminism "lethal" to families', screams Shasta Darlington (Reuters); 'Pope hits out at feminist radicals' proclaims AFP; 'Vatican Assails Feminism' bemoans the Canada Globe & Mail . . . and so on."

Read more (gratias tibi, Christopher).

"Single-Issue" Voters?

For a fine analysis of "Catholics, Kerry, and the 'Single-Issue' Voter," see this analysis in Against the Grain (Gratia tibi, Christopher).

Kreeft says he's lying ... Can you see why?)

"Non-Christians and even Christians can take opposite positions on abortion even when they think rationally, honestly, and with good will. The continuing controversy over abortion shows that it is a truly controversial issue. It is not simple and clear-cut, but complex. Just as the choices for action are often difficult for a woman contemplating abortion, the choices for thought are often difficult for open-minded philosophers."

"Everything I have said so far is a lie, in fact a dangerous lie," says Kreeft.

(Can you see why?)

Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft explains why it is not only philosophically unsound, but willfully dishonest, to deny that personhood begins at conception. Article here, Kreeft's homepage here, Kreeft's enigmatic target here. (Gratias tibi, Jamie.)

Correcting Cardinal Maida on Tridintine Rite

Ad Limina Apostolorum reported recently that Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida is reaching back 40 years to revive a traditional form of the Latin mass, hoping its unusual appeal will help save one of Detroit's most famous Catholic churches, St. Josaphat.

"When the pope authorized bishops to allow this mass in 1984, the idea was that this was a pastoral response to older people who still are so attached to this older mass that they need it," Reese said Monday. "The idea was never to create a new desire in people for this mass."

Whether or not that was the idea, that's what's happening. Perhaps in the minds of the many in the presbyterate and episcopate, "the hope is that this mass eventually will fade away," but many of the faithful are weary of experimentation and theatrics.

Actually, while it may have been the hope of the "progressivist" Novus Ordo innovators that the "older Mass" would eventually "fade away," this wasn't the rationale of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which never envisioned the rupture and "replacement" of the traditional Roman Rite by anything resembling the Novus Ordo. It's rationale, rather, was a "reform" of the traditional rite, which would have meant an organic development and refinement of it, such as it had undergone throughout its age-old history, most recently in the Gregorian reforms under Pope St. Pius X. This is clear not only from Ratzinger's own repeated statements, but from such movements as Fr. J. Fessio's Adoremus Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy. Thus, while the Novus Ordo movement has become a defacto liturgical movement within the Church, the Novus Ordo is far from being an established rite in its own right, as attested by the continual tinkering with it over the last decades. The Novus Ordo is a valid Mass, as it was duly promulgated by Pope Paul VI, but it was never envisioned or mandated by the fathers of Vatican II. Sacrosanctum Concilium, rather, envisions two things: (1) the ongoing existence of the traditional Roman Rite, and (2) the careful reform of that rite, not a replacement of it, such as Ratzinger has called the "rupture" of the Novus Ordo, which has calles "grave damage" to the faithful.

Thus, when bishops such as Detroit's Cardinal Maida describe the tridentine Mass as a rite they hope and expect will die out with the older generation of fuddy-duddies sentimentally attached to it, and will be replaced throughout the universal Church by the Novus Ordo, they're not only missing the point, but engaged in pure fantasy. The traditional Roman Rite is here to stay, along with all the other perfectly licit rites, such as all of the many Eastern rites affiliated with Rome.

Maida story here, kudos to Sanctificarnos. On a similar note, Alan Phipps at Ad Altare Dei records some interesting observations upon attending a Tridentine mass in Sacramento. (Gratias tibi, Jamie.)

More musings

The Illusions of Egalitarian, by John Kekes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2003), was recently reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty in the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer 2004), pp. 44-46. Looks to be an excellent and timely read.

"Meterosexual" is the term now used for the androgynous male who embraces feminism, the ideal straight dandy who is easygoing, caring, open-minded, sensitive, in touch with his feminine side, and the target of those marketing $40 face creams, Bruno Magli shoes, and custome tailored shirts for men. See Michael Rose's guest column article, "Effeminacy in the Service of Capitalism" in the July-August New Oxford Review.

In the same issue is a fascinating article reviewing a video entitled Herb Meyer's The Siege of Western Civilization. Meyer, who was Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council during the Reagan Administration, attempts to cover four major points in 42 minutes, according to the article's author, Charles A. Coulombe.

He first identifies Western Civilization, for better or worse, as the merging of Greek philosophy, Judaisim, Christianity, and post-Renaissance secularism; then he ticks off three threats to that civilization:

(a) Radical Islam: those who wish to convert the world are a real danger, he suggests.

(b) A "Second Civil War" in the U.S. and elsewhere, waged between those who support and those who oppose the traditions of the West as regards marriage, family, culture, etc.

(c) The demographic problem: North America and Europe are aborting and contracepting themselves out of existence.

Interesting.

The National Right to Life News Vol. 31, No. 7 (July 2004), p. 4, has an article (not available online, unfortunately, but only in the print issue), stating that fetal stem cells may bring healing to mothers long after pregnancy:

Cells from unborn babies survive for years in mothers' blood, which may allow doctors to retrieve the cells without killing a child, according to a study in the July 7 Journal of the American Medical Association.

All the potential benefits of stem cell research for preventing Alzheimers and other diseases may be available without the 'need' to 'manufacture' (and destroy) fertilized human embryos, which involves the unjustifiable taking of human life.