What is Catholic Bioethics?
July 15th, 2008 by Fr. Pius, OP
Fr. Basil Cole, OP, has written an article on the Catholic approach to Bioethics for the Catholic Exchange website. The article, entitled, “What is Catholic Bioethics?” explains that ‘Catholic Bioethics’ is a field of medical moral theology, and thus attempts to use use the tools of Catholic moral theology in the world of medicine and science in a way to promote human flourishing and protect human dignity.
Strictly speaking, there is no such science as “Catholic Bioethics” just as there is no such thing as “Catholic Baseball,” “Catholic Dentistry,” “Catholic Garbage Collection,” or “Catholic Plumbing.” Catholics do these activities, but they are not based upon divine revelation. Bioethics is a species of the science of ethics concerned especially about the beginning and ending of bodily life as well as the morality of certain medical procedures during a person’s life. It uses reason to understand what kinds of activity done by doctors are in accord with human dignity and flourishing, and what kinds are only apparently so and actually undermine, mutilate or destroy the goods of human beings.
Now there are many issues which human reason unaided by divine revelation cannot know that should be part of the underlying principles of bioethics. Pure reason does not know that the human person’s soul is immediately created by God nor does it know that human beings are meant to become completely fulfilled in a next life by the beatific vision. Again, reason does not understand why human beings do not achieve happiness in this life and why it is next to impossible to grow and develop in a life of virtue. Reason would seem to prefer as its prime principle that virtue has its own punishment and feelings should often trump what is reasonable and proportionate, notwithstanding the objections of Aristotelian or Thomistic philosophers. …
[The entire article can be read at the Catholic Exchange website by clicking here.]
Fr. Basil Cole, OP, teaches moral, spiritual, and dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. His new book, The Hidden Enemies of the Priesthood, is now available.
