Cardinal Rigali:"The truth is the opposite" in response to Doug Kmiec column in CNS

It was news to me that Kmiec even had a regular column at the Catholic News Service.

Jack Smith at the Catholic Key blog says I'm not alone in having missed this embarassing collaboration:

"Many are surprised to find that Doug Kmiec has a regular column for the bishops' Catholic News Service. He has had one for quite some time and for quite some time it was the best column available at CNS.

Then Kmiec's original candidate for president, Mitt Romney, failed and the rest of Kmiec and his column's history has been a spectacle of descent into self-absorption and shameless apologetic for President Obama's anti-life policies."

And now he's got himself into real trouble:

"Apparently [Kmiec] went too far last week with his column titled, and I'm not kidding, "New ethically sensitive stem-cell guidance from the Obama administration". Cardinal Rigali as head of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities has responded with his own column this week."

Cardinal Rigali begins (read the full article HERE):

"Law professor Douglas Kmiec states in an opinion piece distributed by Catholic News Service that the new policy is “ethically sensitive” and in important respects “more strict” than President George W. Bush’s policy that preceded it.

The truth is the opposite."

Note two things: 1} Cardinal Rigali points out that our own Catholic News Service assisted in disseminating Kmiec's writing (ouch!). 2} Cardinal Rigali could not be "punchier" in his flat disagreement with Kmiec:

"Kmiec says the new guidelines are limited to embryos created for fertility treatment that “would have been discarded if not devoted to medical research.”

That is also not true."

Double "punchier" ouch!

Cardinal Rigali actually published his response in CNS as well. LifeSite's Kathleen Gilbert caught up with him recently and interviewed him about the Notre Dame siutation, which he says "evades common sense".