Communion and Liberation: a Catholic movement in a multilevel governance perspective

In this article we focus on how changes in political structure influence religion. Communion and Liberation (CL) is widely known in Italy as a very important Catholic movement whose political power has been significantly increasing in the last 15 years. It is an example of a movement deeply rooted at the local level, where its activities range from grassroots meetings to business activities and service provision. In the sociological literature, CL has been studied either by focusing on its political ideology, or as a religious movement. Introducing a specific focus on the political system allows us to highlight the close relationships between the recent changes in the Italian political system and the reasons for the local success of CL. Indeed, it has been a process of mutual adaptation and influence. The political success of a Catholic movement in a Western democracy is relevant to understanding the changing role of religion in the political arena. Christian movements can play a role of substitution for traditional political movements in countries where traditional parties have become particularly weak and not capable of inspiring enthusiasm among citizens. But the story of CL in Lombardy suggests also that something is changing in the relationship between national and local politics. CL is able to play on different territorial horizons by using local, regional and national political spheres to promote its policies, mainly in the welfare sector. This is an important signal of a capacity both to adapt to a changing political system and to influence these changes. In this paper we focus on the relationships between CL and Italian politics in the Second Republic (1993 to the present day) by analysing CL representation of its political role as well as by pointing out the political opportunity structure in which its success has taken place.     

Ethical issues in managed care: a Catholic Christian perspective.

A Christian analysis of the moral conflicts that exist among physicians and health care institutions requires a detailed treatment of the ethical issues in managed care. To be viable, managed care, as with any system of health care, must be economically sound and morally defensible. While managed care is per se a morally neutral concept, as it is currently practiced in the United States, it is morally dubious at best, and in many instances is antithetical to a Catholic Christian ethics of health care. The moral status of any system of managed care ought to be judged with respect to its congruence with Gospel teachings about the care of the sick, Papal Encyclicals, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In this essay, I look at the important conceptual or definitional issues of managed care, assess these concerns over against the source and content of a Catholic ethic of health care, and outline the necessary moral requirements of any licit system of health care.     

Observations on the rejection of physician-assisted suicide: a Roman Catholic perspective.

Roman Catholic moral theology follows a centuries-old tradition of moral reflection. Contemporary Roman Catholic moral theory applies these traditional arguments to the realm of medical ethics, including the issues of active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Unavoidable moral limits on licit medical intervention sometimes require that the moral duty to treat cede to the duty to cease treatment when measures become more harmful than beneficial to the patient. This does not reduce the need for the compassionate use of palliative care in response to suffering. However, it does mean that rather than being excessively committed to maintaining mere biological human life, or actively seeking death, that we learn a sober realism about the limits of human life. Catholic moral analysis examines an act objectively, both in its relation to the agent and as a material event in the world. This allows both the virtuous or vicious intentions of the agent and the effects of the action to be included in its moral evaluation. Thus, Catholic moral analysis is both quasi-deontological and quasi-consequentialist. Objectively, active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, as acts of deliberate killing, are seen as repugnant, in that they fail to incarnate a benign inner intention or to form an agent in virtue. Catholic moral theology is extremely skeptical that an act of intending death directly can be consonant with a sincere compassion for the dying, suffering person and views it as a direct negation of the precious gift of human life.     

A Catholic perspective on organ sales.

In this article, I address the issue of the sale of human organs and the moral implications of a market in human organs under the aegis of Christian Bioethics. I argue that moral issues of this kind cannot be adequately be addressed from the point of view of moral frameworks, which point exclusively to procedural norms. Rather, a moral perspective must embody some substantive norms derived from a particular content-full moral or theological perspective. This substantive norms to which I appeal in this article are those of Roman Catholicism. The most important sources cited include the works of Pius XIi (1956) and the works of John Paul II (1985 and 1991). The conclusion reached is that not only is it morally permissible for Catholics to participate in a market in organ sales but it may also be prudent public policy.     

Institutional integrity in Roman Catholic health care institutions.

Issues of institutional identity and integrity in Roman Catholic health care institutions have been addressed at the level of individual institutions as well as by organizations of Catholic health care providers and at various levels in the Church hierarchy. The papers by Carol Taylor, C.S.F.N., Thomas Shannon, Kevin O'Rourke, O.P., Gerard Magill in this volume provide a significant contribution to concerns of Roman Catholic health care institutions as they face the challenges of providing health care in a secular, pluralistic, market-driven economy. One way to understand institutional integrity is as a measure of the coherence between what an institution identifies as its commitments (its stated moral character), what an institution does (its manifest moral character) and an institution's fundamental moral commitments (its deep moral character). The essays in this volume support this model of integrity. Although it is not their explicit focus, the four essays together provide a vision of institutional integrity for Catholic health care institutions. Each author focuses on one of the three central aspects of integrity: what one identifies as one's commitments (Taylor), how one's actions reflect one's values (Shannon and Magill), and what one is or what one values at a deep level (O'Rourke). I will offer a brief overview of the ways in which the integrity of Catholic health care institutions has been addressed. Then I will consider the four essays and show how each offers an analysis of one of the three critical elements of integrity.     

The deep bodily origins of the subjective perspective: models and their problems

The naturalization of consciousness and the way a subjective perspective arises are hotly debated both in the cognitive sciences and in more strictly philosophical contexts. A number of these debates, mainly inspired by neuroscientific findings, focus on the 'visceral' dimension of the body in order to formulate a hypothesis for the coming about of consciousness. This focus on what might be called the 'in-depth body' (which is usually not governed by the intentions of the subject) shows that consciousness or the subjective perspective is intimately linked with vital and visceral regulatory processes. I join the debate by arguing that representationalist accounts of the origin of consciousness in the in-depth body exhibit a number of flaws hitherto mainly unnoticed. Furthermore, some aspects of neuroscientific theories are explored as possible validations of a nonrepresentationalist model of consciousness and the subjective perspective. Inspired by phenomenological (more specifically Husserlian) philosophy, I present a hypothesis in which the subjective perspective constitutes itself (in a process of auto-constitution) and in which the 'in-depth' body is not the object of representations in the brain. Rather, the 'in-depth body' is in a non-objectified way built-in in the subjective perspective itself. In this account, therefore, the subjective perspective looses its transparency and gains 'interoceptive thickness'.     

Human and institutional transformations: Catholic hospitals becoming 'a light in the the darkness.

Catholic health care institutions in the United States and Canada face internal and external challenges to their continued existence. Confronted by these external and internal challenges, Catholic hospitals in the United States and Canada have been pressed to identify what is distinctive about the Catholic contribution to health care and to consider whether existing institutional structures and partnerships foster what is distinctive. The author looks at the essays in this volume by Dennis Brodeur, Clarke E. Cochran, and Christopher J. Kauffman, and suggests that there is little agreement, even among Catholics, on such fundamental issues. The aim of this article is to highlight three important and often overlooked ideas raised by the authors, to relate them to the Canadian context by means of a story, and to pose questions for further discussion.     

Catholic Reflections for an Updated Donum Vitae Instruction: A New Catholic Challenge in a Post-Christian Europe

On February 22, 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of theFaith published the Donum Vitae Instruction. Twenty years later,on February 22, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI asked for an updateof this Instruction. According to the Donum Vitae Instructionof 1987, the principle of the holiness of life imposes respectfor human persons from the very beginning of human life. Inthese past 20 years, new medical techniques have raised freshethical issues that are to be addressed by the Roman CatholicChurch Magisterium. The Roman Catholic Church, in its updateof the Instruction planned for 2007, will have to explain howcivil law is to be regulated according to the fundamental normsof the moral law. The moral message of the new Donum Vitae (justas in the 1987 version) will be to affirm the substance of humanjustice: respect for human life, as expressed in the resolvenot to infringe on, or to protect such life. Even in a post-ChristianEurope, this theological message can be understood if it istrue that Europe is marked by the principle of the absoluteprotection of human life.     

Respect for Older Persons:

Most readily available literature on the subject of the status of older persons and the respect accorded to them is written within the framework of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The result is a possible inclination to universalize to all people concepts and experiences that are unique to one cultural tradition. This paper reviews a totally different cultural and ethical basis of respect for older persons, the Confucian tradition; and traces the history of that tradition through 2000 years of one oriental society: Korea.     

Good education,the good teacher,and a practical art of living a good life: a Catholic perspective

What is good education? We value education for reasons connected to the good provided by education in society. This good is connected to be the pedagogical aim of education. This article distinguishes five criteria for good education based on the concept of ‘Bildung’.

Next, these five criteria are used to develop the idea of the good teacher. The rationale behind the analysis is that the good teacher should be able to realise what we consider to be good education. There are different traditions of religiously affiliated schools in the world. This article gives insight into the idea of the good teacher in two documents of the Catholic Congregation of Education on the lay teacher. Finally, the article focuses on the formation of a practical art of living a good life. Again, the five characteristics of good education structure the analysis of this type of educational formation.     

Nursing Practices in Catholic Healthcare: A Case Study of Nurses in a Catholic Private Hospital

We aimed to investigate Catholic Identity and Mission communication specifically how nurses were expressing the Catholic healthcare values in practice. A mixed-methods, case study design was used and included non-participant observation, a mid-level manager focus group (n = 7) and online surveys (n = 144). Document and observational data analysis revealed the organisation’s commitment to visible indication of Catholic values adherence. Focus group analysis revealed two themes, ‘Catholic values in action’ and ‘taking the extra step’. The impact of Catholic Identity and Mission on nurses and nursing care recipients remains elusive and warrants further understanding.     

The future of Catholic health care: observations from an Orthodox Christian perspective.

The author reflects on the future of Catholic health care by looking at the essays in this volume by Dennis Brodeur, Clarke E. Cochran, and Christopher J. Kauffman. The author argues that (1) Roman Catholic teaching on the Trinity is defective, yielding an inadequate model of society, (2) Roman Catholic teaching on the Incarnation is defective, yielding an impoverished understanding of the "sacramental," and (3) the institutional orientation of Roman Catholicism combined with the lack of true sacramental vision makes it nearly impossible for Roman Catholic theory to criticize the current structure of health care financing.