This paper focuses on examination of women’s participation in clinical trials as it was regulated by the two official regulations Costa Rica used to norm the clinical research. Both regulations were derogated some months ago. The point of view of the paper is the difference between men and women concerning participation in clinical trials, even though the moral principles are the same for all citizens. Its meanings are not the same depending to the gender. Autonomy is enough requirements for male (...) participants but not for female participants: in the name of their reproductive ability, they suffer a decrease of their self-determination. According to this, regulations not also has incurred into a contradiction, but also involving beneficence, against the aims of clinical research. (shrink)

This article will examine Bellarmine’s first anti–conciliarist work, found in the Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, emphasizing his theological treatment of the pope’s authority relative to the authority of a council and his repudiation of conciliarism. Bellarmine sees the conciliarists as attacking the divinely instituted Petrine structure of the Church. He does not advocate for an absolute papal monarchy in which there are no ‘constitutional’ limitations on the papacy. For Bellarmine, Christ and his Word, as found (...) in Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, have supreme authority in the Church: one which the magisterium, whether papal or conciliar, must accept in humility and pass on unsullied. Only Christ has a true fullness of power; the pope has a fullness only relative to that of the bishops. Nevertheless, Christ immediately instituted the pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and as such, the pope has supreme ecclesiastical power over the whole Church on earth. Lastly, the article examines Bellarmine’s position on papal heresy. (shrink)