| U.S. News

"We take this complaint very seriously," said Deacon Larry Weber, executive director of the conference, the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops.

"However, we believe strongly that we didn't violate the IRS code or regulations," Deacon Weber said. "We're only seeking to provide information and clarify who is taking funding from supporters of embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning. People are known by the company they keep."

Deacon Weber said discrepancies in campaign finance disclosure reports filed by officeholders and by a political action committee, Supporters of Health Research and Treatments, prompted the conference to write letters in April to each state lawmaker asking if he or she had received a contribution from the committee and intended to return it.

"The MCC is committed to informing Missouri voters about the political activities of organizations promoting human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research, and will report to Missouri voters about candidates who associate with such organizations," Deacon Weber wrote in the letter to officeholders. "Missouri voters deserve to know which candidates support or oppose these immoral activities."

The letter prompted a complaint filed by Marcus S. Owens, a tax attorney for the Washington firm of Caplin & Drysdale, on behalf of a client he declined to name in reports published in The Kansas City Star and The New York Times.

Owens, who served for 10 years as director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division before entering private practice in 2000, charged in the complaint that the conference's letter "constitutes illegal political interference" by a tax-exempt organization.

Deacon Weber, however, said the letter was not sent to candidates but to sitting members of the Missouri General Assembly who were listed as receiving donations from Supporters of Health Research and Treatments.

That committee has ties to the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which gathered signatures to place a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would protect embryonic stem-cell research and prohibit any state or local actions discouraging it.

Since it was formed in February 2005, Supporters of Health Research and Treatments has given donations ranging from $300 to $5,000 to campaign committees of at least 53 Missouri House and Senate members, including both Republicans and Democrats, according to reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

In June, the Missouri Catholic Conference reported that eight lawmakers have returned or have promised to return money received from the embryonic stem-cell research and cloning supporters.

The IRS complaint prompted a strongly worded defense of the conference from the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

In a July 25 statement, Catholic League President Bill Donohue called the IRS complaint "bogus on the face of it."

"If the Missouri Catholic Conference were advocating that candidates for public office return monies donated by the (Ku Klux) Klan, no IRS complaint would have been filed," Donohue said. "But because the Catholic group is fighting the fat cats – millions have been raised in Missouri by PACs (political action committees) promoting all kinds of genetic research – the censors are out in force."

Donohue called the IRS complaint a "First Amendment matter" with chilling implications for the free speech rights of "all nonprofit organizations that speak to public policy issues."

Financial disclosure reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission indicated that Supporters of Health Research and Treatments has raised nearly $1.5 million, and has distributed about $421,000 as of June 30 to various candidate campaign committees.

The Missouri Coalition of Lifesaving Cures reported that it had raised $16 million and spent more than $12 million to promote the embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning protection amendment.