A pro-life group that monitors the use of cells from babies victimized by abortions is today highlighting a biotech company, Senomyx, which it says produces artificial flavor enhancers using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products.

[snip]

“The company’s key flavor programs focus on the discovery and development of savory, sweet and salt flavor ingredients that are intended to allow for the reduction of MSG, sugar and salt in food and beverage products,” the Senomyx web site says. “Using isolated human taste receptors, we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.”

Vinnedge says a boycott is important because the collaborating companies provide Senomyx with research and development funding plus royalties on sales of products using their flavor ingredients.

“What they don’t tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” she said. “They could have easily chosen animal, insect, or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors.”

I found out about this thanks to Julie at Happy Catholic, who also compiled a brands cheat sheet. And then Christine conveniently linked to the updates and contact information for each of the companies still involved (PepsiCo and Kraft) in using human embryonic kidney cells for food testing.

I’m not happy about this on many levels. For one thing, this really changes my purchasing habits. For another…SERIOUSLY? USING HUMAN EMBRYONIC CELLS? Supporting abortion’s “byproducts” in this way can NEVER be okay. Never ever ever. Even if it means we can’t eat the foods we’re used to and I have to buck up and do some baking.

I have contacted PepsiCo and Kraft and I hope you will, too. As my husband pointed out in response to my (ongoing, rather loud) ranting about this, boycotting without communicating to the companies doesn’t do any good.

I remember hearing, on an interview on the Catholics Next Door podcast edition, that it would be important to remember Haiti after the hubbub died down. The bishop they were talking to, in fact, mentioned the one year mark. “Remember Haiti next year,” he said. “They’ll still need help.”

I put a little flag in my mind to include something in the parish bulletin, but I forgot. Thanks to the bulletin announcements from the Diocesan Office of Social Concerns, we did have something in our bulletin, though.

It’s so easy to forget after the drama’s over. We all have busy lives, other concerns, new emergencies that grab our attention.

Heidi Jury, who works for Chalice, contacted me a while back about the continuing needs in Haiti. She asked me to post on Facebook about it, but I thought it warranted more attention than that.

Over at Spirit Singing Soul, Heidi writes:

“It’s the women I remember mostly. After ten years, I still vividly see the eyes of two women at a medical clinic in Haiti holding their babies who were so sick from malnutrition. Your sponsorship helps the children you sponsor but sometimes it is their mothers that feel it the most.” – Fr Patrick Cosgrove

Fifteen years ago, Fr Patrick Cosgrove, the president of Chalice, was watching a sponsorship program on television. As he went to phone them to sponsor a child, he stopped and prayed, “Lord, what I want to do is sponsor a child in the Catholic church.” Two weeks later the phone rang with an opportunity to work with a Catholic sponsorship program named CFCA. Fr Pat worked on the board until he started working on his own in 1996 in the basement of a church rectory. The first year, Chalice (then called Christian Childcare International) sponsored less than 500 children. This year, Chalice helped over 42,000 children and aging and was ranked #1 in the International Aid Category in Moneysense Magazine.

This January, Chalice is remembering the Earthquake that affected Haiti on January 12, 2010.  We continue to remember the people of Haiti and pray for God’s continued blessings and protection over them.

There’s an embedded video and more information there. I’ll be joining them in prayer, and I hope you will too.

Welcome, Joseph William!

November 29

1:37 PM

7 lb, 3 oz

19″

So far, everything’s going swimmingly. Our thanks to everyone for your support and prayers!

It was a strange occurrence that found me at a newsstand today,

Of course I shelled out the $6 and change to get my own copy. Of course I ignored my children to read it. Of course I should have known better.

That subtitle, “How women can save the Catholic Church from its sins,” should have tipped me off, but I still held a thread of hope.

This week’s Mary Moment Monday was going to be something about Mary in the spring, about how I find her in the cracks and crevices of my lawn, where the tulips have been picked by little fingers and handed to me. Instead, I find myself wading into the murky waters of scandal.

I don’t like debating about this. Really, I don’t think there’s a debate. I don’t keep quiet because I support it, but because I’m praying, and, honestly, I don’t think I add anything to the conversation.

As for the role of women, which this article maintains is the problem — perhaps, had there been women in the hierarchy, we could have avoided these scandals (Really?) — I have to just shake my head. In our parish, which I’ve been heavily involved in, behind the scenes, for the last six years, women are the cogs in the wheel. In fact, if I took attendance, last I checked, it takes both men and women. If there’s a woman in the pew or at an event, there’s a chance there’s a man somewhere supporting her choice or decision to spend her time there. Maybe he’s her father, the one who raised her Catholic, or her husband, or a big brother. He might be a priest who struck a chord with her (not in a scandalous way, mind you) or a deacon who encouraged her to go to college when everyone else told her it would be a waste of her time.

The Church is made up of men, yes. Priests are men, yes. Let’s not debate whether women need to priests or what Jesus meant. Let’s not cite things that aren’t considered valid to all of us.

But behind those men in the Church, there are women. Plenty of them. They raised those men, encouraged those men, and maybe, years ago, dated those men.

Believe it or not, you can be celibate and still have an idea of what it means not to be celibate. There’s beauty in that. In fact, it gives me a greater respect for these men (and women) who choose celibacy. It’s hard. It’s a sacrifice. That’s what makes it such a discernment.

The real problem is: our Church is made up of humans. And there’s really no way around it.

Said far better, by Jen at Conversion Diary:

This latest turn of events has only been a reminder of the age-old mystery that I wrestled with for so long, that humans have been wrestling with for the past two thousand years: that God exists, and even came down to walk among us, and yet he did not stop the suffering. He didn’t take away a single person’s free will — not even those whom he guides to speak on his behalf — and did not exempt one person from the potential to experience the worst kind of suffering. Not innocent children. Not even his own beloved Son. The way he dealt with suffering was to plunge himself into the heart of it, to come down and suffer with us, and for us. Nothing more. Nothing less.

What I’ve found is that, if you can muster up the courage to face that truth head-on, to accept it with all its weight, and resist the urge to run away, it is there that you will encounter Christ.

(It’s worth taking the time to read that entire post, “Safe Miracles,” which is Jen’s take on the scandals as a convert. She writes a lot that makes me nod, though my own experience is slightly different.)

In the interest of giving you something else to read that will hearten you and give you accurate, enlightening information, why not read George Weigel’s article in the same issue?

Updated, thanks to Erin M. in the comments: Here’s the link to the original article.