NCBC Author Receives Prestigious Award
Matthew Hanley, a recent Senior Fellow with The National Catholic Bioethics Center, has been named the winner of this year’s international scientific Ratio et Spes award. The prestigious award is given jointly by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland and the Vatican-based Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation.
The award recognizes a particularly outstanding interdisciplinary scientific publication, typically one also having great relevance to the fields of philosophy and theology. According to the panel of experts and the award’s Scientific Council, the finest work for 2021 year was Matthew Hanley’s book "Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: Current Practice and Ethics," which the NCBC published jointly with the Catholic University of America Press.
The presentation of the award took place in Torun, Poland, on February 19 (Copernicus’ birthday), during the annual University Day festivities. The Laureate was asked to honor the celebration with a lecture on a theme selected for the award: “The Value of Life and Care for Health”.
Due to international travel restrictions, Hanley’s remarks were delivered via teleconference. He noted that the unprecedented response to the global corona virus had overwhelmingly negative effects and lamented the intentional suppression of safe, effective, and inexpensive treatments. This was a failure to value life or care for health. Given its irrationality and callousness, he called for ratio et spes (reason and hope) to be restored to government policies.
Turning to his book, he observed that the accuracy of determining death is essential, especially in the context of organ transplantation. We must value the life of the donor even as we care for the health of the recipient. Medical authorities overwhelmingly agree that death necessarily entails the irreversible destruction of the entire brain, including the brainstem. He explained why the Catholic Church, which conceives of death as the separation of body and soul, has consistently considered the neurological criteria to be a valid means of determining death.
He also noted the implications this has for organ transplantation protocols that rely upon the “heartbeat” standard for determining death—the circulatory criteria. Few are aware that this traditional means of ascertaining death is (somewhat paradoxically) less certain than the neurological criteria (brain death) because organ procurement commences soon after cardiac arrest. He concluded his address by noting that the moral or prudential standard of certainty afforded by the neurological criteria does not appear to be present with the circulatory standard.