Description: Health care provides unique opportunities to bear witness to the divine charity that animates the Church in the care for both the body and spirit of those within and outside the Church. Crucial to authentic witness and care is a clear grasp of the dignity of each person and the moral principles that follow from that dignity, especially the fundamental respect for human life from conception to natural death. Protecting human dignity and respecting life in concrete and often complex medical cases demands a robust theological framework, prudential reasoning, the Church’s sophisticated moral tradition, and the pastoral guidance of the local bishop. This course analyzes a variety of central medical topics—care for medical providers, beginning of life issues, disability and genetic screening, and permanently unconscious patients—by drawing on the Catholic moral tradition (ST 61) as well as theological and moral principles directly relevant to medical ethics.

Seminary: Mt. Angel Abbey Seminary

Science areas: Medicine and the human body, genes and biology