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The Case for a Medicinal Ethic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Olivier de Dinechin SJ
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Extract

What are the effects on moral theology of the arrival of the AIDS virus? In society as a whole, both in individuals and institutions, we could say that this virus has functioned as a ‘catalyst’, emphasising the reflexes, the ideologies, what is commonly shared and what is unspoken. In the Church as well, the stir has been significant, and we have more than once commented on the episcopal statements which have appeared in all the countries affected. The moral theologians have had to face questions from journalists, from colleagues or in their relationships with the Magisterium.

Besides the strong recommendation to become involved without discrimination in the care of people infected by the virus, a striking phenomenon in this stir is the widely-shared impression—widely shared inside as well as outside the Catholic Church—that a certain kind of moral language is not suitable for those who are in the most direct contact with AIDS: the sick or people who are HIV Positive, their families, those caring for them, those responsible for public health, the scientific researchers and the pastors themselves. This gap was evident even at the international level, at the 4th Conference on AIDs organised by the Vatican, which took place on the 13—15 November 1989. Some of the moral theologians appointed to speak from the platform left speechless the majority of the thousand participants—priests, religious, doctors, directors of institutions—who had assembled from all over the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 71 , Issue 840 , July 1990 , pp. 325 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Cf. Xavier Thévenot in his interview with Hirsch, Emmanuel, Le sida, rumeurs et faits, Le Cerf, Paris, 1987Google Scholar.

2 For example, the periodical Actualité religieuse dans le monde, March 1987, or Bernard Matray, ‘Eglises et sociétés face au sida’, Le Supplément, no. 170, September 1989.

3 It concerns the quarrel between moralists who describe themselves as ‘déontologistes’, ‘conséquentialistes’, ‘utilitaristes’, ‘proportionalistes’. Regarding the prevention of AIDS, see for example the criticism of the problematic of the lesser evil used in the declaration ‘The Many Faces of AIDS’ published by the United States Bishops ‘Conference, criticised by Smith, Janet E., ‘The Many Faces of AIDS and the Toleration of the Lesser Evil’, International Review, XII, 1, Spring 1988Google Scholar.

4 Paul Ricoeur, address to a colloquium at the Institut Catholique de Paris, 19 Januar' 1989, referred to in an interview published in La Croix, 18 March 1989.

5 Xavier Thévenot, op. cit., p. 179.

6 Paul Ricoeur, ‘Le scandale du mal’, Nouveaux Cahiers, no. 65, Summer 9.Y. republished in Esprit, July‐August 1988.

7 Ey, Henri, Naissance de la médecine, Masson, 1981, pp. 111–143Google Scholar.

8 Perrin, Louis, Guérir et sauver, Le Cerf, 1987Google Scholar.

9 John Paul II, encyclical Dives in misericordia, 30.11.1980, passim. We wish such statement would impregnate all Catholic teaching on morals: ‘This requirement (of mercy) … constitutes the essence of the evangelical moral and ethical teaching’, writes to Pope.

10 Paul Claudel, Oeuvre poétique, ‘Cinq grandes odes, cinquième ode’, Bibliothèqute Pléiade, 1967, p. 282.

11 See my article, ‘La traverseé du dilemme’, Christus, no. 134, April 1987.