 |
||
| SFX for Life | The Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, Hunt Valley, Maryland |
|
Bioethics | |
| Articles on this Page (Click on item to go there) |
|
What Matters Most Part 1 - Human Dignity
Published Date: December 26, 2008
Two weeks ago, headlines across the world announced the release of the Vatican’s official position on bioethics. Naturally, the Catholic Church’s stance on the destruction of human embryos, the creation of designer babies, and the like was greeted with scorn by liberal Catholics and by many medical professionals and scientists.
But two things truly fascinate me about the release of this document. The first is its title: “Dignitas Personae”—or, in plain English: “On the Dignity of the Person.”
Now that’s an interesting title for the Catholic Church’s official teaching on bioethics. Actually, it’s the perfect... Read More
You can find part 2 of this series on our Marriage page by clicking here.
Adult Stem Cells May Have Cured AIDS?
Embryonic stem cells cure nothing and cause myriad problems, not the least of which is killing people to extract them.
For some time the action has been in the field of adult stem cells, even if regularly ignored by the media and government in the never ending pursuit of abortion rights, no matter the cost. But if this story is true, there will be no ignoring it. The Big Kahuna...
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) — A 45-year-old man now living in the Bay Area may be the first person ever cured of the deadly disease AIDS, the result of the... Read More
'Your Own Stem Cells Work!' - Carron Morrow's Story
Published Date: August 22, 2007
An event planner named Carron Morrow says she had two choices when it came to treating a serious heart condition: Sign liability papers for an unusual new treatment—or drop dead.
Not surprisingly, she chose to sign the papers—and became another stem-cell miracle. An adult stem-cell miracle, that is.
Carron, a 58-year-old Alabama mother, was in bad shape last year after suffering four heart attacks. The right side of her heart was functioning at less than 50 percent. Carron needed a new heart—but 100,000 people were ahead of her on the transplant list.
By fall, she... Read More
Amazing But True - Miracle Stem Cell Cures
Published Date: February 22, 2010
No doubt you’ve heard how adult stem cells are providing amazing cures. Oh, you haven’t? Well, I’ll tell you why.
It sounds like something out of science fiction—or “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”—but it isn’t.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports the story of Russell Turnbull, who tried to break up a fight while riding home on the bus one night. For his pains, Turnbull ended up getting ammonia sprayed into his right eye, which scarred his cornea. Turnbull lost most of his sight in that eye, and suffered pain every time he blinked.
But now Turnbull has had his sight almost... Read More
Deadly Utility - Funding Embryo-Destructive Research
Published Date: December 09, 2009
Will sacrificing human embryos increase societal happiness? You might find that a strange question—and you’d be right.
Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health approved 13 new lines of embryonic stem cells for use in federally funded experiments.
The approval put an end to an eight-year moratorium and is an example of how the manipulated and shortsighted desires of the powerful elite put the vulnerable most at risk.
Since August of 2001, researchers using federal money have been limited to 21 embryonic stem cell lines, stem cells derived from an original set of embryonic... Read More
The Bioethics of The Clone Wars
by Matthew Belinkie — Thu, Aug 4, 2011, 7:00am
I’ve written about the strangeness of Cartoon Network’s The Clone Wars before. This is a kids adventure show about a massive interstellar war in which one person is secretly controlling both sides for personal gain, and it’s going to end with the good guys all getting slaughtered by their own troops. Take a look at this napkin I saved from my kid’s birthday party. The guy on the left kills a bunch of children. The one in the middle cuts off three of his best friend’s limbs and leaves him to... Read More
Be Rational
By Chuck Colson|Published Date: February 07, 2011
How to Wage Worldview Wars
First published in December, 2001, this BreakPoint commentary seems more relevant today than ever.
When confronted by moral choices, Christians are quick to make dogmatic assertions. On cloning a prominent evangelical said simply, "We are not the Creator, and the responsibility to assume control of the universe is not ours." Well, true, but that means very little to those who don't believe in a Creator and think that assuming control of the universe is their responsibility. So when we do that, it's an ineffective way of arguing.
In... Read More
The Ethics of Cloning
Is all cloning immoral? Or are there ways we can responsibly use the fruits of our knowledge in caring for God’s creation? A Catholic ethicist explains. By Russell B. Connors, Jr.
AMAZING. Maybe it’s because I can still be wowed by yet another Spielberg dinosaur film. Maybe it’s because I find the processes of reproduction and the inner life of DNA to be as much about mystery as they are about medical research. And maybe, in the end, it’s because I’m a theologian and not a scientist. Whatever the case, when I first heard the news about researchers in Edinburgh,... Read More
Basic Resource: Papal Encyclical on Bioethics
Encyclical Letter - Caritas In Veritate
INTRODUCTION
1. Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and of all humanity. Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan. Indeed, he himself is the Truth (cf. Jn 14:6).
2. Charity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine. Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (cf. Mt 22:36- 40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships (with friends, with family members or within small groups) but also of macro-relationships (social, economic and political ones). For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God's love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it. Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope.
I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence, pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living. This is a matter of no small account today, in a social and cultural context which relativizes truth, often paying little heed to it and showing increasing reluctance to acknowledge its existence.
3. Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the Bible, who is both Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word... Read More