New bioethics training course teaches leaders how to apply Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life
(Fonte: www.lifesitenews.com )
The Global Certification Program in Health Care Ethics is a partnership between Human Life International (HLI) and the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC).
Combating the secular worldview is more urgent than ever, especially for those on serving on the frontlines of battles against abortion, euthanasia, and organ harvesting.
Two Catholic pro-life organizations have designed a bioethics training curriculum for a solid understanding of the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life.
The Global Certification Program in Health Care Ethics is a partnership between Human Life International (HLI) and the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC). It aims to assist health and life sciences professionals, pro-life and pro-family leaders, professors, attorneys, institutions that shape public policy, clergy, and specialists in biomedical and biological research with the information and skills they need to understand and advance the Church’s moral tradition.
The program involves approximately ten hours a week of online seminars, required texts, and conversation, as well as weekly quizzes and essays.
From the program, participants will learn how to effectively apply the Church’s moral teaching as expressed in The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services in complex dilemmas, and to identify resources available to health care professionals and those in health care ministries which provide guidance for the resolution of bioethical issues.
There are currently eleven HLI leaders participating in the first cohort. They hail from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
“The new initiative will enable HLI leaders and other pro-life and family leaders to articulate the Catholic church’s understanding of the inherent dignity of the human person — the objective basis for the Church’s moral tradition in the service of the human person and of his or her flourishing,” stated Father Shenan J. Boquet, the president of HLI.
“It will enable leaders to develop effective and wide-ranging pro-life and family programs, help them to identify resources for the resolution of bioethical issues, and prepare leaders to train, assist and mentor other leaders,” he continued.
“A solid education in the Church’s bioethical teaching and a firm understanding of the underlying worldviews affecting human persons will enable these leaders to better advance the culture of life and identify entities, like the United Nations and the Gates Foundation, which advocate for the culture of death — having no regard for the inalienable dignity of human life.”
“When pregnancy complications arise, doctors who appreciate and respect the value of the lives of both the mother and child will first pursue medical strategies that take into account the life and health of both patients, often with the result that both mother and child safely come through the pregnancy, to the great joy and satisfaction of everyone involved.”
The course celebrates truly life-giving advances in healthcare science while still putting human agency into perspective.
“It is the rare person who would eschew the blessings of modern science. Few of us would thrive as Luddites, resisting the technology that has extended our lives, improved our health, and upgraded our way of life over centuries,” observed Clowes. “There’s no doubt that science has brought many blessings to mankind. However, the innate human desire to ‘play God’ has brought into question the boundaries of what we have a right to interfere in and what we do not.”
Boquet spoke of “the positive impact of a proper education in Catholic bioethics…a solid formation in the moral tradition and Catholic identity grounds the Church’s institutions — i.e., colleges and universities, hospitals and nursing centers, and research centers — providing the means to create a society and culture that supports authentic human flourishing. With this certification from the NCBC, HLI’s global missionaries will be able to further apply the Catholic moral tradition to challenging contemporary issues in health care, such as contraception, abortion, reproductive technologies, euthanasia, assisted suicide, along with end-of-life issues, and organ donation.”
In Rwanda, HLI Director Aloys Ndengeye spoke enthusiastically about the training. “Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) will help me in our medical professional pro-life training. Catholic healthcare providers will be taught about ERDs and even non-Catholic have been invited.”
Aloys pointed to the Principle of Double Effect with ERDs as a very helpful training “because in our pro-life mission we meet with ethical challenges/problems at the beginning of life—for example, ectopic pregnancy,” the module he is studying currently.
“There are a lot of skills that we need and will use in our different programs, in different trainings in my HLI mission,”Aloys added. “This NCBC bioethics training will help me to deal with the problems related to the beginning of life, and to respond to them with pro-life Catholic teachings.”
The Rwandan HLI director expressed gratitude for the curriculum, saying: “It is bearing fruits into my mission. For example, this Saturday I will be having a medical professional pro-life program, which will include ERDs.”
Fr. Boquet is satisfied that the course is a solid response to the new ideological colonialism.
“The incursion by western promoters of contraception and abortion and purveyors of the culture of death will now meet stronger, better fortified opponents, who are equipped with a higher level of bioethical understanding,” he said.
