The Cincinnati Archdiocese has warned Catholic school principals against donating to the ALS Association due to concerns that the money could wind up funding research that uses embryonic stem cells.

Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Catholic schools are still allowed to participate in the ice bucket challenge, the inescapable viral video sensation that challenges individuals to either dump a bucket of ice water on their heads or donate $100 to the ALS Association.

But the archdiocese wants Catholic participants to re-purpose thefundraising juggernaut by donating to a different research group one the archdiocese believes is more in line with Catholic values.

We appreciate the compassion that has caused so many people to engage in this, Andriacco told the paper. But its a well-established moral principle that a good end is not enough. The means to that ends must be morally licit.

Cincinnati-area Catholic schools participating in the challenge should direct donations to theJohn Paul II Medical Research Institute in Iowa City instead, Andriacco said. Jim Rigg, superintendent of Catholic schools for the archdiocese, will take the re-purposed version of the ice bucket challenge Thursday morning and make a donation to the archdioceses preferred charity.

The ALS Association hasraised more than$30million through the ice bucket challenge since late July, including fundsfrom 637,527 new donors to the association. By comparison, the organization received just $1.9 million in donations for the same time period last year. The funds support the organizations mission of pursuing research, treatment and care for the disease better known asLou Gehrigs disease.

Like just about everyone in your Facebook news feed, several Catholic schools and organizations have already participated in the challenge, seemingly without any dissonance over the charity it benefits.

Those participants include the seventh-grade volleyball team atSt. James Catholic School, seen here:

As the challenge caught on, a few Catholic organizations began to raise questions aboutwhat sort of research the ALS Association funds. Although the Vatican has in recent years expressed support for research using adult stem cells, the issue of embryonic stem cells is more morally complicated for Catholics.

In general, the church believes that adult stem cell research is more scientifically and morally sound than that conducted on embryonic stem cells.

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Cincinnati Archdiocese freezes Catholic school donations to ice bucket challenge charity

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