Over the weekend

Excommunication Is Sought for Stem Cell Researchers Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, head of a group for family-related policies in the Catholic Church declared recently that stem cell researchers should be considered automatically excommunicated.
Destroying an embryo is equivalent to abortion. Excommunication is valid for the women, the doctors and researchers who destroy embryos.
The Vatican did not comment. But the declaration of Cardinal Lopez Trujillo could be an indication on how the Catholic Church intends to treat this problem.

More Episcopal Dioceses Reject New Female Leader. There is an increasing conflict within the US Episcopal Church between the liberal and the conservative wings. The newly elected presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is contested by the conservatives, due to her positions in the very sensible issues such as open gay bishops and same sex marriages - and not only. Recently she spoke about Mother Jesus in a sermon.

To those who accuse her of heresy for referring to a female Jesus, she responds with a typically learned disquisition on medieval mystics and saints who used similar language, including Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila. I was trying to say that the work of the cross was in some ways like giving birth to a new creation. That is straight-down-the-middle orthodox theology. Yet she acknowledged that she likes to shake people up a bit. All language is metaphorical, and if we insist that particular words have only one meaning and the way we understand those words is the only possible interpretation, we have elevated that text to an idol, she said in a telephone interview. I'm encouraging people to look beyond their favorite understandings.

Life, Liberty and Open Lanes. John Tierney considers that the US Interstate highway system needs two reforms: the related taxes to be kept by the states, and electronic tolls with higher pricing at peak hours.


Rumblings from China. Nicholas D. Krystof thinks the economical growth of China will not last long. Reasons: Rise of labor costs, rapid aging of China's population.
Says Mr. Krystof, The upshot is that I sense more fragility in the system than at almost any time in the 23 years that I've been visiting or living in China. Party officials say they feel it, too, and I think that's why the leadership is so reluctant to devalue the yuan: it doesn't want to risk factory closures, job losses and unrest.

Another column in NYT related to China: President Hu Jintao marked the Chinese Communist Party's 85th anniversary by advancing their new official doctrine - xianjinxing, which translates literally as advanced nature. He said, History proves that only when the party maintains its advanced nature can it push forward both the party's and the people's mutual interests, develop advanced production and advanced culture, and realize the interests of the vast majority of the people. In the same time Mr. Hu issued a strong warning - rampant corruption could erode the party's popular legitimacy and undermine its hold on power.