February 19, 2007 09:33 AM
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Bishops must give lay Catholics the tools they need to be convinced and to convince others about why the church takes the ethical stands it does on some scientific and technological advances, the Vatican's top doctrinal official said.
"The attitude is widespread, even sadly among many Catholics who believe and practice their faith, that the magisterium of the church is overly negative, that 'the old men in the Vatican' are against progress even when it is designed to help people who are sick, or infertile, or the like," said Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a Feb. 7 talk in Dallas.
"It should be emphasized that the church's 'no' to certain practices is not a negative reaction to modernity, but rather is a positive 'yes' to the dignity of every single human being," he said. "It is above all a defense of those who have no voice, those who are most vulnerable and those who have no one else to defend them."
Cardinal Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, spoke on "The Role of the Magisterium in Bioethics" at the National Catholic Bioethics Center's 21st workshop for bishops, funded by the Knights of Columbus. More than 150 bishops from the U.S., Canada, Latin America and elsewhere attended the Feb. 5-7 workshop on the theme "Urged on by Christ: Catholic Health Care in Tension With Contemporary Culture."
The cardinal, who once chaired the board of what is now called the National Catholic Bioethics Center, recalled introducing his predecessor in his Vatican post, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, as a speaker at a bishops' workshop years ago.
"When I told him I would be coming to address this audience, we recalled that visit in what for both of us must seem another life," he said.
Cardinal Levada outlined five basic principles that guide the Catholic Church in its pronouncement of moral teachings on bioethical issues:
-- "The essence of being a Christian ... is not a moral code but rather a person, namely Jesus Christ," and communion with him "involves a new way of living -- a choice to live according to the Gospel."
-- Although the church recognizes "the autonomy of the sciences and of technology," science must follow moral guidelines to "be at the service of man and not vice versa."
-- The magisterium must "defend the church's perennial teaching on the dignity of every single human life."
-- The church's "so-called negativity" toward different forms of artificial fertilization does not indicate a lack of compassion toward infertile couples but rather "a 'yes' to the dignity of marriage and of nuptial love which must not be replaced by technology at the origin of new life."
-- The church has a responsibility to be "at the service of society" by defending marriage and the family, promoting just laws and working to abrogate unjust laws, in order to promote the common good.
"To be sure, securing agreement on what constitutes the common good today is no easy task in many societies," Cardinal Levada said.
"But the difficulty of the task must not weaken the resolve of those of us responsible for articulating church teaching in the area of bioethics to continue to propose to the faithful and to society at large a reasoned voice in defense of human life and the family," he added.
The cardinal said he could "almost hear a collective 'Yes, but ...' in response" to his five principles.
"We surely all agree that the concrete application of these principles to specific issues is where we have the greatest difficulty in convincing our people, often so thoroughly formed by cultural values that make the underlying principles of Christian morality seem remote or hard to accept," he said.
The cardinal recalled the church's unsuccessful efforts in 2004 to defeat a California initiative that provided $3 billion in state funds for embryonic stem-cell research. Opponents of the measure faced both a huge difference in campaign funds (nearly $35 million versus $625,000) and an advertising blitz that featured dramatic, personal appeals from the sick and dying.
"One lesson I drew for myself as archbishop of San Francisco was this: In the face of such a sophisticated, personalized campaign, our people, even our priests, had not been prepared well enough to understand and articulate the argument based on the principle of the dignity of embryonic human life," Cardinal Levada said.
The experience underscored "the need to provide our Catholic people who practice their faith the tools to enter into informed dialogue with their fellow citizens about the increasing number of issues in the field of bioethics that are finding their way into the democratic political process, either in the legislative process or at the ballot box," he said.
The cardinal also stressed the importance of helping Catholics "avoid the tensions, even opposition, between the support of life and the promotion of justice and peace, too often in imitation of the political divisions that mark our cultures."
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