Health and Medicine in the Catholic Tradition

Tradition in Transition
RICHARD A. McCORMICK

This third volume in a series devoted to Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions deals with the major questions of the day relating to sexual, medical, and familial morality from the Roman Catholic point of view. As the author makes clear, the Catholic tradition on many of these questions is in transition, reflecting "a contemporary Catholic consciousness" rather than a fixed, immutable position. Among the issues discussed are: birth control and responsible parenthood; abortion, particularly the question of ethical pluralism and public policy; treatment of the new- born with disabilities; life-prolonging treatment of the dying; and ethical guidelines for the care of the retarded and the aged. An entire chapter is devoted to the newly emerging concern for justice in health care, which encompasses such issues as equitable access to health care, proper allocation of medical resources, unionization of health care employees, and racism and sexism in health care institutions.

RICHARD A. MCCORMICK, S.J., is Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at The Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University.



Contents

Foreword by Martin E. Marty			ix
Introduction			1
1.	"Ethical Guidelines for Catholic Health Care Institutions"		8
	Introduction		8
	Guidelines		9
2.	Well-Being		15
	Authority and Leadership		24
	A Christian Notion of Leadership		27
	The Depth of Well-Being		30
	An Interpretive Understanding of the Christian Moral Life		33
	The Relativizing Influence of the Love Command		36
	A Christian View of the Health Care Profession		39
3.	Morality		44
	The Source of Moral Problems		45
	The Means for Forming a Correct Conscience		46
	The Preconciliar Magisterium		62
	The Postconciliar Magisterium		65
	The Problem of Remaining Uncertainty and Doubt		72
4.	Justice in Health Care		75
5.	Sexuality		86
	Saint Augustine		87
	Saint Thomas		88
	From Saint Thomas to Casti connubii		90
	Casti connubii		91
	Since Casti connubii		92
	Vatican II and Beyond		92
6.	Dignity, Passages, Madness, Suffering, Dying		105
	The Dignity of the Sick and the Dying		107
	Prenatal Life		123
	The Newborn		144
	The Retarded		149
	"Ethical Guidelines for the Treatment of the Mentally Retarded"		150
	The Aged		156
Conclusion			160
Notes			162
Afterword by Kenneth L. Vaux			172

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