The question of embryo adoption remains unresolved. Dignitas personae expresses reservations about the practice, but does not reject it. A proper interpretation of Dignitas personae n. 19 shows that the Vatican does not hold that human embryo adoption is intrinsically immoral, but that the question of its morality depends on the circumstances that surround the practice. Embryo adoption as practiced today is often compromised by illicit cooperation with objectionable reproductive technologies; nonetheless, it is possible to identify a best case scenario (...) which may lessen or even eliminate these concerns. That best case is when a Catholic couple, who have not previously utilized in vitro fertilization to overcome a problem of infertility, adopt an abandoned embryo and choose to raise that child as their own. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.2 (Summer 2010): 329–347. (shrink)

The recent moral analysis of Therese Lysaught concerning the death of a child by dilation and curettage is emblematic of a wider trend in Catholic moral theory that has forgotten Western metaphysics. Lysaught’s analysis depends on seeing the world as a mechanical system, lacking in all teleological order and thus incapable of providing the mind with moral guidance. The rejection of the traditional philosophical conviction that nature is under the governance of God, and its replacement with the view that nature (...) is a merely physical order, explains why the new theorists do not see that direct killing of the innocent is wrong. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 (Spring 2011): 53–62. (shrink)

Catholics have been at the forefront of efforts over many years to secure universal access to health care in the United States. These efforts suf­fered a serious setback when the federal government enacted the Affordable Care Act and then quickly used it to assault rights of conscience. This assault has brought into serious question the once promising hope that a partnership might be forged between church and state to benefit those at the margins of society. Given recent events, Catholics and (...) others are compelled to reassess their willingness to trust the power of government to carry out this aim in a manner that respects fundamental human rights, including the rights of religious believers. The words of our founders and framers, who warned against the dangers of an overbearing government, merit renewed attention. (shrink)