The Catholic Physician in an Era of Secular Bioethics

Abstract

This essay examines how commitment to the Roman Catholic moral and ethical traditions shapes the process, and content of bioethics and clinical decisions. An essential element of the vocation of Roman Catholic health professionals is to give genuine witness to that tradition in their daily clinical practices. Three questions will be addressed: 1) What is the justification for introducing religious commitments in clinical bioethics in a morally pluralist society? 2) What specifically does the Catholic medical tradition contribute to today's clinical decisions? 3) How are faith and reason to be balanced in clinical ethics? 4) Why are these questions relevant to papal calls for re-evangelization, or “re-proposal” of the faith, especially in the life of the physician?