The Bishops Speak

This chapter discusses Catholic bishops speaking out on issues of the day. Catholic Church teaching and tradition yields “conservative” positions on issues such as abortion and physician-assisted suicide and “liberal” positions on issues such as immigration, capital punishment, and assistance to the poor. Survey data finds that bishops tend to write more frequently about the Church’s pro-life teachings than its “liberal” social teachings. Most bishops say they ask Catholics to consider Catholic teachings when voting for candidates. Most bishops agree that the clergy sexual abuse scandal has made it more difficult for them to present or defend Catholic teaching in their diocese. This is especially the case in dioceses where the scandal has received more media coverage. In general, bishops say that criticism in the media is a greater problem for them in more secularized areas of the country.

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Obstacles to Change in the Church: Lessons from Four Brazilian Dioceses

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs ◽

10.2307/175007 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 395-414

Author(s):

Thomas C. Bruneau

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Media Coverage ◽

Third World ◽

The Other ◽

The Third ◽

The Poor ◽

The One ◽

The Third World ◽

The Church

A review of the popular and even scholarly literature dealing with the Catholic Church in Latin America during the last decade will leave the reader confused. The books, articles, and media coverage in comparison with each other are ambiguous and at times contradictory. If on the one hand the Church is described as the fastest-changing institution on the continent, there is on the other hand ample proof put forth that the institution is stagnant and in many cases apparently bankrupt. While some students point to the emergence of militant clergy groups such as the Golconda movement in Colombia or Priests of the Third World in Argentina, others as easily argue that these movements are beyond the institution and without significance in the larger society. And for every time the Church is shown siding with the poor and oppressed, two instances are held up in which words are not followed by action.

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Catholics and capital punishment: Do Pope Francis’s teachings matter in policy preferences?

Punishment & Society ◽

10.1177/1462474521998879 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146247452199887

Author(s):

Francis T Cullen ◽

Amanda Graham ◽

Kellie R Hannan ◽

Alexander L Burton ◽

Leah C Butler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Death Penalty ◽

Capital Punishment ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Religious Affiliation ◽

Adult Population ◽

The United States ◽

Public Officials ◽

Policy Issues ◽

National Surveys ◽

Church Teaching

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances. Based on two national surveys, the current project explores Catholics’ support for state executions before (2017) and after (2019) the Pope’s momentous change in the church’s Catechism. At present, little evidence exists that Pope Francis’s doctrinal reform has impacted Catholics, a majority of whom—like Americans generally—continue to favor the death penalty for murderers. Data from our additional 2020 MTurk survey show that only 17.0% of Catholic respondents could correctly identify the Church’s position on capital punishment. Despite these results, Pope Francis’s teachings provide Catholic leaders and activists with a compelling rationale for opposing the death penalty and holding Catholic public officials accountable for espousing offenders’ execution. Further, for the next generation of Catholics, instruction in the inadmissibility of capital punishment, as part of the Church’s consistent ethic of life, will be integral to their religious training.

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The Catholic Perspective on Death with Dignity

Ethics & Medics ◽

10.5840/em2019441014 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 44 (10) ◽

pp. 1-2

Author(s):

Mark Hnatiuk ◽

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

End Of Life ◽

Assisted Suicide ◽

Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Rise of Secularism

Ethics & Medics ◽

10.5840/em20174258 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 42 (5) ◽

pp. 1-2

Author(s):

Karen Wenger ◽

Keyword(s):

End Of Life ◽

Assisted Suicide ◽

Terminally Ill ◽

Physician Assisted Suicide ◽

Award Winning ◽

Life Issues ◽

Wish To Die ◽

Aid In Dying ◽

The Media ◽

End Of Life Issues

The media has been instrumental in disseminating and glamorizing physician-assisted suicide, also known as aid in dying and medical aid in dying The organization Compassion and Choices claims that people seeking physician-assisted suicide want to live, carefully plan their demise, and often include family, while those who choose suicide are not terminally ill and wish to die, are typically impulsive in their decision, and act independently of family. The award-winning documentary How to Die in Oregon examines both sides of the debate and features several individuals as they struggle with end-of-life issues. The filmmakers help the viewer ponder important questions about the purported benefit of physician-assisted suicide.

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Almost Over

10.1093/oso/9780190097158.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

F. M. Kamm

Keyword(s):

Capital Punishment ◽

Meaning In Life ◽

Assisted Suicide ◽

Worth Living ◽

Physician Assisted Suicide ◽

State Action ◽

Medical Issues ◽

Life Issues ◽

End Of Life Issues ◽

Cass Sunstein

This book is a discussion of philosophical, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. It considers different views about whether and why death is bad for the person who dies, and whether these views bear on why it would be bad if there were no more persons at all. The book looks at how the general public is being asked to think about end-of-life issues by examining some questionnaires and conversation guides that have been developed. It also considers views about the process of dying and whether it might make sense to not resist death, or even to bring about the end of one’s life, given certain views about meaning in life and what things it is worth living on to get and do. Some hold that it is not only serious illness but ordinary aging that may give rise to some of these questions and the book considers various ways in which aging and the distribution of goods and bads in a life could occur. Physician-assisted suicide would be one way to end one’s life and the book examines arguments about its moral permissibility and whether or not it should be legalized as a matter of public policy. This discussion draws on capital punishment debates concerning state action and also on methods of balancing costs and benefits. The book examines the views of such prominent philosophers, doctors, and legal theorists as Shelly Kagan, Susan Wolf, Atul Gawande, Ezekiel Emanuel, Cass Sunstein, Neil Gorsuch, and others.

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Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius' Snake

10.1093/med/9780190673673.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

T.A. Cavanaugh

Keyword(s):

Capital Punishment ◽

Assisted Suicide ◽

Medical Ethic ◽

Medical Profession ◽

Ethical Problem ◽

Sexual Exploitation ◽

Physician Assisted Suicide ◽

Greek Myth ◽

Medical Experience ◽

Iatrogenic Harm

Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession articulates the Oath as establishing the medical profession—a practice incorporating an internal, uniquely medical ethic that particularly prohibits doctors from killing. In its most basic and least controvertible form, this ethic mandates that physicians try to help while not trying to harm the sick. Relying on Greek myth, drama, and medical experience (e.g., homeopathy), the book shows how this medical code arises from reflection on the most vexing medical-ethical problem: iatrogenic harm, injury caused by a physician. The book argues that deliberate iatrogenic harm—especially the harm of a doctor choosing to kill (physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and involvement in capital punishment)—amounts to an abandonment of medicine as an exclusively therapeutic profession. Since electively killing a patient always injures (even when done at the patient’s request), the Oath excludes killing (along with other salient harms such as sexual exploitation and the violation of patient confidentiality) from medicine as a profession. The work argues that medicine as a profession necessarily involves stating before others what one stands for: the goods one seeks and the bads one seeks to avoid on behalf of the sick. The book considers and rejects the view that medicine is purely a technique lacking its own unique internal ethic. It concludes by noting that medical promising (as found in the White Coat Ceremony by which US medical students matriculate) implicates medical autonomy, which merits respect, including the honoring of professional conscientious objection.

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Menemukan Teologi Leonardo Boff dalam Ensiklik Paus Fransiskus Laudato Si'

Indonesian Journal of Theology ◽

10.46567/ijt.v5i1.34 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 42-67

Author(s):

Buce A. Ranboki

Keyword(s):

Latin American ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Comparative Method ◽

Economic Life ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

The Poor ◽

Leonardo Boff ◽

Papal Infallibility ◽

Franciscan Order ◽

Social Teachings

As a Catholic theologian at the vanguard of liberation theology, Leonardo Boff wrote much about the poor and of the destruction of nature. Boff constructed his theology on the basis of Vatican II’s (1962-1965) spirit of aggiornamento. Eventually, and with much controversy, Boff opted to leave the Franciscan order, having oft-criticized the doctrines and social teachings of the Catholic Church deemed “lukewarm” toward structural poverty and Latin American socio-economic life that had been impacted by the actions of junta militarism; as well, he criticized both the hierarchical spirit of the Roman Catholic Church and the doctrine of papal infallibility. Since the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis), who has dedicated his life and theology to address the destruction of nature and the cries of the poor, the spirit of Boff's theology seems again to be on the rise. My conviction is that the theological content of Laudato si’ displays something of a Boffian character, the import of which propels the present study. By way of comparative method, I show that there are similarities in the theologies of both theologians. This essay begins with an exploration of Boff's theology, continuing with an exploration of the text of the encyclical Laudato si’, followed by the bringing together of these texts comparatively. By the end of this paper, a critique concerning the concept of sustainable development will be put forth.

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Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Media

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.291 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Karen J. Terry

Keyword(s):

Sexual Abuse ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Media Coverage ◽

The United States ◽

Policy Changes ◽

High Profile ◽

Clergy Sexual Abuse ◽

The Media ◽

The Church ◽

The Catholic Church

Media attention on child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church led to awareness of a serious social problem and increased the levels of disclosure of abuse. The three “emergencies of clerical sexual abuse in the media” occurred in 1985, 1993, and 2002 (Maniscalco, 2005). The catalyst for the media coverage was high-profile clergy offenders with multiple victims and in 2002 also included the claims of cover-ups by high-ranking cardinals in the United States. Most victims of clergy sexual abuse disclosed their abuse decades after the abuse occurred, and the increased rates of disclosure coincided with the three periods of increased reporting in the media. Though the constant reporting in the media led to some misconceptions about CSA generally and CSA within the Catholic Church, it also led to policy changes in how the church responded to allegations of abuse and aimed to prevent future acts of abuse.

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Death and the State

Almost Over ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190097158.003.0008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 245-296

Author(s):

F. M. Kamm

Keyword(s):

Capital Punishment ◽

Empirical Data ◽

Assisted Suicide ◽

The State ◽

Moral Rights ◽

Physician Assisted Suicide ◽

Role Of The State ◽

Constitutional Right ◽

Distinctive Role

Chapter 8 considers how one should reason about assisted suicide as a matter of public (and legal) policy in the absence of a constitutional right to it by critically examining anti-legalization views such as those of Ezekiel Emanuel. The chapter considers the role of (i) moral rights and wrongings and how they come about as well as (ii) harms and benefits and how to aggregate them. How arguments for the distinctive role of the state in enabling or interfering with behavior bears on these issues is considered by reviewing some arguments about capital punishment. Finally, in the light of empirical data about effects of legalizing physician-assisted suicide and given what else Emanuel believes, the chapter considers whether he should no longer oppose legalization.

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Euthanasia and Related Practices Worldwide

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910.19.3.109 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 109-115 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Michael J Kelleher † ◽

Derek Chambers ◽

Paul Corcoran ◽

Helen S Keeley ◽

Eileen Williamson

Keyword(s):

Assisted Suicide ◽

International Association ◽

Active Euthanasia ◽

Physician Assisted Suicide ◽

Passive Euthanasia ◽

Medical Practitioners ◽

General Acceptance ◽

International Importance ◽

Controversial Area ◽

Active And Passive Euthanasia

The present paper examines the occurrence of matters relating to the ending of life, including active euthanasia, which is, technically speaking, illegal worldwide. Interest in this most controversial area is drawn from many varied sources, from legal and medical practitioners to religious and moral ethicists. In some countries, public interest has been mobilized into organizations that attempt to influence legislation relating to euthanasia. Despite the obvious international importance of euthanasia, very little is known about the extent of its practice, whether passive or active, voluntary or involuntary. This examination is based on questionnaires completed by 49 national representatives of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), dealing with legal and religious aspects of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, as well as suicide. A dichotomy between the law and medical practices relating to the end of life was uncovered by the results of the survey. In 12 of the 49 countries active euthanasia is said to occur while a general acceptance of passive euthanasia was reported to be widespread. Clearly, definition is crucial in making the distinction between active and passive euthanasia; otherwise, the entire concept may become distorted, and legal acceptance may become more widespread with the effect of broadening the category of individuals to whom euthanasia becomes an available option. The “slippery slope” argument is briefly considered.

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