Free Bioethics Texts from the NCBC

The Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers’ definitive guide on bioethics in the Catholic Church, now available in an online form.

Since the fundamental ethical criterion governing scientific research can only be the defense and the promotion of the integral good of the human person, it follows that any procedure performed on human beings, even at the very dawn of their personal existence, must respect the dignity and rights originating in human nature itself. Far from an extrinsic limitation on human freedom, this moral obligation arises from the very truth about the human person.

The theme of this book is certainly broader than the specific arena of bioethics; however, “conscience” is a fundamental principle of ethics. As such, applied ethics presumes a clear understanding of conscience. But experience teaches that the notion of conscience is anything but clear at any level—whether in catechetics or in moral theology.

One of the principal theses in this book is that this unresolved polarization within secular humanism has today resulted in that deflation of the Enlightenment which we call “postmodernism.” Again we have a “Catholic moment” when the Gospel message stifled by the Enlightenment can be heard.

This book provides a record of one exchange in an ongoing dialogue between the scientific and theological communities in the complex and emotionally charged topic of human sexuality.

This book notes the two hinges of discussion that Pope St. John Paul II cites in the 1980 synod of bishops: fidelity toward the plan of God for the family, and a pastoral way of acting. The text sets out to present a contemporary and balanced theology of human sexuality and marriage in the light of magisterial teaching and the Christian theology of the Person.