CATHOLIC DOCTORS AND BIOETHICS IN THE FUTURE OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPE
Dr. José María Simón Castellví, President, International Federation of Catholic Doctors’ Associations (F.I.A.M.C.)
In assessing the impact and the potential for future work in Europe of organized Catholic doctors, one would have to take three fundamental aspects into account.
1. – The European Federation of Catholic doctors (F. E. A. M. C.), as well as the international F. I. A. M. C. possess a feature that differentiates them from other groups in the Church. Generally, a founder, a charisma or a devotion are born in a particular place and, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in an individual. It is from this person that the Holy Spirit will expand into other lands or the whole world (centrifugal in character). In the case of our Federations this happens the other way round, centripetally. Various associations are born “like mushrooms” from Leo XIII onwards (see the studies of Dr. François Blin) and feel the need to meet, work and pray together, to federate. Over time many of the doctors from the various national associations have got to know each other well, have become friends and, thus, the large Federations are not seen as an imposed superstructure. Thus it is also easier to live with economic subsidiarity. Today it would not be possible for the F.I. A. M. C. to finance the member associations’ multiple apostolic projects. There is a unifying link, one of charity, aided by an Internet portal, international congresses, some joint activities, the newsletter “Decisions”.
2. – The fact that our associations and federations have many years of history helps us to see how the Church has long since helped doctors with the most delicate moral issues. Before the word “bioethics” was successful in marketing doctors already had texts and systems about it that marketing would have envied. I’ll give you three examples from my library:
A. – Elementos de moral médica. Tratado de las obligaciones del médico y del cirujano (Elements of Medical Morality. A Treaty of Doctors and Surgeons’ Obligations). Dr.Félix Janer. Barcelona. Imprenta de Joaquín Verdaguer. 1834.
B. – Moral Principles and Medical Practice. The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence. Rev. Charles Coppens, S.J. Benziger Bros. Chicago. 1897.
C. – La ciencias médicas. Criterio católico (The Medical Sciences. The Catholic Approach). Various authors. Tipografia Perelló. Barcelona. 1916.
These books, and many others, as well as brochures, lecture notes, etc., should not be seen as inferior to the current texts on bioethics. Their structure and arguments are not only concerned with the Church’s Magisterium but also abound with philosophical and scientific reasoning.
3. – Studying the past can help us build the future (the Holy Spirit and ourselves).
We, as Catholics, should give testimony and reasons for our thinking, in season and out, with all the resources at our disposal. Texts as powerful as “Fides et ratio” or a great part of the Popes’ Magisterium are of such a level that even in a secular faculty they can be read and appreciated. The Charter for Health-Care Workers (from the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Health) is a very beautiful and well-argued text which should never cause us embarrassment in front of anyone.
Although it may seem somewhat strange, even amongst Catholic doctors, our ethics is a trinity, an ethics of grace, an ethics of the Mother, an ethics of the world, this being understood as good coming from the hands of God. Also, an ethics of human rights and the rights of Creation and God himself, Catholic doctors would do well to follow the following principles:
A. – To do what is good (in cases of doubt, the Commandments, the Catechism or a wise colleague can be consulted).
B. – To avoid doing what is bad (with the help of our will and our colleagues, prayer and the sacraments). Do not negotiate with evil or with the devil.
C. – Never do something bad in order to achieve something good. Then this supposedly good action would by nature be bad.
/Under embargo until June 6, 9 AM. GMT)
D. – Minimize the side effects of our actions (this as doctors we know very well as it is already part of our profession)
E. – Always respect the truth.
F. – Always bear in mind that the human being is biological, psychological, familial, social and spiritual. One should always treat the unity of the human being by taking these facets into account. We are biological but not biologically determined.
We are psychological but not psychologically determined. We are part of a natural or extended family that also has its rights. Without being socialists, we are part of a society to which we have to contribute something but that can’t remove our essence. We are spiritual but we are not spiritualists. At the end of our earthly lives, what will always remain is the good that we’ve done and the evil that we have transformed which has been forgiven.
(Under embargo until June 6, 2014, at 9 AM GMT)
