Catholic bioethics is tied not just to the ethical teachings of Jesus Christ but to the transformative reality that human beings have a unique dignity and destiny to be raised from the dead and hopefully spend all eternity with God. St. Paul was very blunt about the overwhelming importance of the bodily resurrection of Jesus to all followers of Christ. “
Read MoreWe live in a world that by and large unconsciously accepts the false view that there are no such things as intrinsically evil acts. Saint John Paul II, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, summarized the Catholic and natural law position well.
Read More“War is Hell.” This quotation from Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is sometimes used to mistakenly imply that ethics does not apply to warfare. As harsh as Sherman was in deliberately and systematically destroying civilian property, crops, and livestock, even he drew a line at deliberately killing the noncombatants he made homeless.
Read MoreI should not be surprised or shocked, but I still shook my head in disbelief when the radical abortion “Women’s Health Protection Act” (H.R. 3755) failed to advence in the US Senate by only two votes this week. I do not by any means want to imply that selective ethical blindness is a uniquely liberal phenomenon. It is widespread, and I recognize a version of it in myself when I am tempted to rationalize a bad action of mine that I would never defend when I see others doing the same. Fallen human nature, a consequence of Original Sin, is in evidence all around us, and perhaps most distressingly, in our own hearts.
Read MoreWe recently concluded our 28th NCBC/Knights of Columbus Workshop for Bishops which explored the very important topic of updating the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs).
Read MoreThere are providential moments when the time is right for significant events and movements to emerge. I see this very clearly with the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance (CHCLA).
Read MoreFifty years is a venerable age for a bioethics center, especially since the academic discipline only came into being in the 1970s. The original name of the NCBC when we were founded in 1972 was the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center. It was the year before Roe v. Wade unleashed abortion-on-demand across the USA. We are fervently praying that 2022 will be the year that the US Supreme Court reverses itself and allows states to ban abortion again. Yet, even if the enormous ethical issue of abortion moves towards resolution, there are vast and growing areas where bioethical reasoning and guidance are needed in health care and biomedical research. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, has led to the busiest time in our Center’s history.
Read MoreSwitzerland’s medical review board recently authorized use of the Sarco Suicide Pod. This is the latest in a long line of death machines that agents of the Culture of Death have enthusiastically proposed.
Read MoreI joined several thousand pro-life citizens and a small and largely dejected group of abortion supporters who rallied outside the United States Supreme Court as the petitioner’s oral arguments were made to the nine Justices: the Roe v. Wade ruling should be cast onto the great scrap heap of wrongly decided cases.
Read MoreWhat a surprise to sit down on a commuter train and see an ad picturing a newborn baby held tightly by a woman with the tag line “overcoming infertility with a uterine transplant.” Bioethics is truly everywhere these days.
Read MoreRecently I have reflected on how a key aspect of the ethical framework proposed by the Catholic Church turned the world on its head. The moral judgment that the rich, powerful, and privileged should serve and care for the poor, weak, and underprivileged was a revolutionary concept.
Read MoreI recently had a rather shocking experience. Irresponsible reporting on Twitter and a blog accused me of lying to deceive Catholics. The reports linked to a brief part of an interview I had done on EWTN’s Pro-Life Weekly program almost a year ago. I said (correctly) that there was no link to abortion in the manufacture of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. (In fact, no cell lines at all are used to produce these new MRNA vaccines.) So far, so good.
Read MoreI am so pleased to have this opportunity to highlight the wonderful work of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization that focuses on charity and helping men and their families to grow in faith and service to the Church.
Read MoreEach and every person’s moment of death is of the highest significance. The Church has always focused with the greatest zeal on bringing the sacraments and every kind of spiritual support possible to the dying. That was the background for the Ars Moriendi, or The Art of Dying book, composed in the late Middle Ages, probably by a Dominican friar.
Read MoreIn late 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the first COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use in adults. In May 2021, the Pfizer vaccine became the first authorized for children as young as 12. The threshold may be lower by the start of the new school year this fall. How can parents begin to think through a vaccination decision for children?
Read MoreEach and every person’s moment of death is of the highest significance. The Church has always focused with the greatest zeal on bringing the sacraments and every kind of spiritual support possible to the dying. That was the background for the Ars Moriendi, or The Art of Dying book, composed in the late Middle Ages, probably by a Dominican friar.
Read MoreJournalists and others have increasingly employed the problematic phrases “vaccine hesitancy” or “vaccine hesitant” to describe those who have so far not accepted one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.
Read MoreThe most remarkable feature of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is that its description of gender dysphoria strongly implies that the human mind can exist in the wrong body.
Read MoreThe Archdiocese of Philadelphia won an important religious liberty case in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled unanimously against the requirement that Catholic Social Services place foster children with same-sex couples.
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