The city of San Antonio played host to the annual convention of The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, of which I am a member, Sept. 26-28. The members of the Fellowship met at the Drury Hotel for three days of theological presentations and discussion, given by an elite group of scholars on the general topic of “Conscience, Cooperation and Complicity.”
The topic is one of the “hot issues” of our day. It raises the question of how far may a person assist in helping another person who is doing something that is judged wrong. This issue arises in regard to merging Catholic health facilities with non-Catholic ones that wish to continue practices not acceptable to the Catholic Church; with participation in an abortion by a politician who votes pro-choice; with the dilemma of a Catholic pharmacist who is asked to dispense abortifacient pills (such as the so-called “morning-after pill”) or, in Oregon, with dispensing assisted suicide pills; with government officials who are expected to preside at ceremonies creating same-sex unions (often called erroneously “marriages”); etc. May Catholics participate in these endeavors? (My answer is no, but the reasons depend upon application of the principles of Informed Conscience, Cooperation and Complicity.)
I will not recount the content of the eight sessions/presentations. (I could not do it in the confines of this op-ed piece.) But I will share with you some of the issues considered. First, let me note that San Antonio should be proud of the appearance of one of the speakers, Dr. Edmund Pellegrino. Pellegrino, an M.D., has been president of The Catholic University of America, director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University and member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO (among other positions). He is now chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics. (And by “president,” I mean George W. Bush of Washington D.C.) For over 25 years, American presidents have appointed people to head an advisory council to the president and to Congress on the issues of bioethics. George W. Bush appointed Dr. Pellegrino, a Catholic, to the position in 2005.
At the session on Sept. 27, Dr. Pellegrino spoke, as a private citizen, of course, not as chairman of the national committee. His message was this: new ways are guiding the doctor-patient relationship in our country and these new ways, secularistic in origin and practice, do not bode well for Catholics. The relationship is one in which the physician is viewed as licensed by the state and therefore an agent of the state, entering into a contractual agreement to do a medical service to a citizen, who has a right to that service. Therefore whatever the state considers “legal” (such as abortion) should be done by the doctor. If his conscience dictates otherwise, then he should get out of health care practice. In fact, Dr. Pellegrino expressed the opinion that many medical organizations and state functionaries would like to see Catholic doctors and Catholic facilities go out of business. Furthermore, these same groups do not want Catholics even to argue moral issues on any kind of religious ground. Such arguments are immediately disfranchised from the conversation. In many medical circles, the law is the final arbiter.
Furthermore, the idea of “human autonomy” so commonly asserted in various realms of society today becomes “patient autonomy” and absolutized. Whatever the patient wants should be given. And what in the past were the safeguards of physicians — conscience clauses — are gradually being put aside. As you would imagine, Dr. Pellegrino strongly opposed such views and pleaded for continued recognition by the state of the human dignity of the doctor by respecting his conscience.
The titles of some of the other presentations will give you an insight into the conference discussions: “Conscience Protection under International Law,” “Principles of Cooperating in Evil,” “Catholic Colleges, Conscience, and the Culture,” “Responsibilities of a Catholic Voter in an Election Year,” etc. Furthermore, awards were given to Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat; to Father James J. Schall, SJ, and to Dr. John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Institute.
Let me leave you with the cautiously optimistic note which was part of the closing remarks of Father Schall.
He said that we Catholics should be thankful. We have lived through some tough times in the past 30 years, but we also should realize that we have had wonderful popes for over 100 years, some of the best of the church’s history, and the current one is perhaps the brightest intellectual in the world today.
We have many emerging Catholic lay leaders who are strong and faithful. So we have reason to be a little bit “triumphalist.” His optimism was refreshing.
Father John A. Leies, SM, STD, is president emeritus of St. Mary’s University and was formerly head of the Theology Department there.