The Purpose of a Catholic Bioethics Center
Jehan Georges Vibert, Around the World, 1840-1902.
The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) exists to provide education, guidance, and resources to the Church and society to uphold the dignity of the human person in health care and biomedical research, thereby sharing in the ministry of Jesus Christ and his Church. Bioethics is an area where the lay faithful have great need of support in the formation of their consciences and discernment in making moral decisions. With science and technology becoming more complex and powerful at an unprecedented rate, it can be challenging to know the best ethical course of action. There is often an absence of specific magisterial teaching on completely new procedures, so people must rely on sound Catholic moral and ethical principles to discern what is morally right and what is illicit.
The Church takes time to reflect on questions before making magisterial pronouncements. The first baby born after being conceived using in vitro fertilization (IVF) was Louise Brown. Her birth in 1978 created an urgent need for the Church to give a moral evaluation of this procedure. It was not until 1987, however, that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its instruction Donum Vitae condemning IVF as illicitly replacing the conjugal act of the spouses rather than the morally acceptable action of assisting them to overcome infertility. In that nine-year gap, when Catholics did not have clear magisterial teaching to follow, they relied on bioethics centers like the NCBC, faithful moral theologians, spiritual directors, etc., to help them understand what the Church would probably teach and to make decisions accordingly.
It is a grave responsibility to assist people in the formation of their consciences. This is something the NCBC takes very seriously as we provide guidance to both institutions and individuals. Our Personal Consultations Department exists to offer “an accessible means through which Catholics and all people of good will can draw upon the light and life of Christ in the Catholic moral tradition, free of charge, helping to form their consciences when confronted with ethical dilemmas in health care and biomedical research.”
The NCBC has been doing personal consultations for over 50 years now, but we made a special effort to enhance our ethics consultations for individuals two years ago with the launch of our Personal Consultations Department on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2022. In God’s providence, this was the same day that the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was published reversing the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling. Here is how our newest department implements the NCBC’s vision. “The work of the Personal Consultations Department enables the understanding and application of the teachings of the Catholic Church on human life and dignity in concrete situations involving real people, accompanying those who have questions and equipping them with guidance and resources to form their consciences.”
The NCBC also uniquely decided to help form young Catholic ethicists who have studied bioethics but need practical experience before going on to serve in professional capacities as ethicists or chaplains in health care settings or even as teachers. We have a structured program of interns and fellows in our Personal Consultations Department. They receive training from NCBC ethicists by writing draft answers to emails we receive with ethical questions in our free individual consultations service. These answers are checked and corrected, if necessary, by experienced ethicists before being sent back to the person in need of ethical advice. This is a time-consuming process, but one that yields results in helping our interns and fellows acquire the virtue of prudence and learning to respond in ways that foster respect for human life and dignity with integrity, charity, and wisdom. As a Catholic institution, we also pray for those who face extremely difficult ethical decisions for themselves or others in medical settings.
Our NCBC publications, from newsletters and essays to our academic journal and books, explain Catholic bioethical reasoning and teaching. We go deeper into why the Church has decided certain ethical questions and give opinions as to what may be decided in the future by the magisterium of the Church on unresolved questions. One issue, in particular, has raised much debate among faithful Catholic ethicists: embryo adoption. There are powerful arguments for and against trying to rescue, by prenatal adoption, frozen embryos abandoned in suspended animation by their biological parents after being conceived in vitro. Some years ago, the NCBC gathered the opinions of Catholic scholars and experts in a book. The controversy has been so heated that we will soon bring out a new publication on this subject. Something the NCBC has always pledged to do, however, is to submit our ethical opinions to the wisdom of the Church. When an issue is decided authoritatively, we accept it and help Catholics to understand the magisterial pronouncement.
The NCBC serves the Church, from our bishops and Catholic health care institutions to the clergy and lay faithful, in difficult areas of bioethical discernment. It is a crucially needed resource in the midst of the biomedical revolution we are living in where what once was science fiction is increasingly becoming scientifically possible. Ethical safeguards and answers are needed with increasing urgency while the Church ponders and prepares definitive teachings. Catholic bioethics centers like the NCBC thus have a vital role to play in the modern age.
Much of what we do is free to the public, so we rely on your generosity to sustain our mission. We are currently in the midst of a matching gift campaign to support our Personal Consultations Department and would be very grateful for your financial support. May God bless you abundantly!
Joseph Meaney received his PhD in bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. His doctoral program was founded by the late Elio Cardinal Sgreccia and linked to the medical school and Gemelli teaching hospital. His dissertation topic was Conscience and Health Care: A Bioethical Analysis. Dr. Meaney earned his master’s in Latin American studies, focusing on health care in Guatemala, from the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from the University of Dallas with a BA in history and a concentration in international studies. The Benedict XVI Catholic University in Trujillo, Peru, awarded Dr. Meaney an honorary visiting professorship. The University of Dallas bestowed on him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 2022.