Catholic

Background: The use of embryos in embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) has elicited ethical controversies as it entails the destruction of 5-day old human embryos to harvest stem cells. Objective: To explore the ethical positions of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Catholicism concerning the use of (1) left-over embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) also known as ‘surplus’ embryos and (2) ‘research embryos’ which are created by scientists to conduct research using embryonic stem cells. Methods: The opinions of religious leaders of Buddhist, Hindu, and Catholic faiths in Malaysia pertaining to ESCR were examined via in-depth, semi-structured interviews while Islamic responses are collected from local writings related to the derivation of fatwa on this issue. Participants’ responses on the ethics of human stem cell research are presented as a reflection of various scriptural texts of these four religions. These are presented and supported with the help of international bioethics lite...

Background: The use of embryos in embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) has elicited ethical controversies as
it entails the destruction of 5-day old human embryos to harvest stem cells.
Objective: To explore the ethical positions of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Catholicism concerning the use
of (1) left-over embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) also known as ‘surplus’ embryos and (2) ‘research embryos’
which are created by scientists to conduct research using embryonic stem cells.
Methods: The opinions of religious leaders of Buddhist, Hindu, and Catholic faiths in Malaysia pertaining to
ESCR were examined via in-depth, semi-structured interviews while Islamic responses are collected from local
writings related to the derivation of fatwa on this issue. Participants’ responses on the ethics of human stem cell
research are presented as a reflection of various scriptural texts of these four religions. These are presented and
supported with the help of international bioethics literature and focus on the use of ‘surplus’ embryos and
‘research’ embryos.
Results: Islamic ethics deviate from Hindu and Buddhist teachings regarding saving of research embryos that
have been created specifically for research and are considered as human lives only after 120 days fertilization.
Hindu and Buddhists also underscore the sanctity of human life, but give priority to the alleviation of suffering
in living adult humans. They generally encourage ESCR. Research is a knowledge-seeking endeavor considered
noble by Islam. This is also a concept within Hindu and Buddhist philosophy; in particular, when potentially
beneficial research goals are the basis. Catholicism also emphasizes sanctity of human life, but stresses also
the inviolability of embryos from the moment of conception.
Conclusion: Embryonic stem cell research is permissible and encouraged according to Hindu and Buddhist
perspectives in view of the potential benefits of such research to society, with some reservations. This is similar
to Islamic views on the ethics of ESCR. However, Catholicism differs from all the other three religions; it appears
to discourage research in this field because of the likely violation of a sacred principle in Catholic teachings.

Öz Hıristiyanlık, her ne kadar farklı gruplara ayrılmış olsa da ana akım Hıristiyanlık; Ka-toliklik, Ortodoksluk ve Protestanlık olmak üzere üç mezhebe ayrılmıştır. Hıristiyan-lığı değerlendirirken mezheplerin dini algılama ve yorumlamalarına da dikkat etmek zorundayız. Bu bağlamda vahiy anlayışı da Hıristiyanlıkta en önemli doktrinlerden birisidir. Zira vahiy; kutsal kitap, inanç, ibadet ve dünyaya ait bakış açılarını da şe-killendiren temel konuların başında gelmektedir. Bu makalede Katolik, Ortodoks ve Protestan mezheplerindeki vahiy anlayışı ele alınmaya çalışılacaktır. Araştırmamızda Hıristiyan mezhepleri arasında vahiy anlayışı konusunda birtakım farklılıkların olduğu dikkat çekmektedir. Özellikle İslam dünyasında Hıristiyanlık tek parçalı bir yapı gibi algılanmaktadır. Bu çalışmamızda vahiy bağlamında Hıristiyan mezhepleri arasındaki inanca dair birtakım farklılıklara dikkat çekilecektir. Böylelikle çalışmanın Hıristiyanlı-ğın doğru anlaşılmasına da katkı sağlayacağı umulmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Dinler Tarihi, katolik, ortodoks, protestan, vahiy, kutsal kitap UNDERSTANDING OF REVELATION IN CHRISTIAN SECTS Abstract Although Christianity is divided into different groups, there are three main sects of Christianity which are Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. When Christianity is being assessed, we must pay attention to the religious perception and interpretation of sects. In this context, understanding of revelation is one of the most important doctrines in Christianity. Because revelation is at the head of the fundamental subjects that shapes the point of views belong to the holy book, belief, worship and world. In this article it will be tried to be handled the understanding of revelation in Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant sects. In our study it attracts attention that there are some differences about the understanding of revelation among the Christian sects. Especially in the Islamic world, Christianity is perceived as a one-piece structure. In this article it will be drawn attention to a number of differences among the Christian sects in the context of revelation. In this way, it is hoped that our work will contribute to the correct understanding of Christianity as well.

Pienso dividir mi obra en tres puntos los cual son el encuentro, el desplazamiento y el envió.  Estos son los tres aspectos del discipulado cristiano.  Estamos llamados o sea tenemos la vocación de ser cristianos gracias al encuentro personal con Jesucristo, al hecho de dejarnos desplazar por el Señor para ser enviados a su rebaño en la iglesia y el mundo.  Estos tres momentos se unen muy bien al método de ver, juzgar y actuar que hemos utilizado en nuestra conferencia.

Several scholarships made this research possible. My many thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Gates Cambridge Trust, for providing me with a substantial scholarship, and to the UK Home Office for awarding me an Overseas Research Scholarship. Funding for my studies was also generously given by St John’s College, Cambridge, and by the Cambridge History Faculty’s Prince Consort Fund, and Ellen McArthur Fund.

The Second Vatican Council’s recovery of the Catholic Church’s commitment to its missionary vocation towards the world places upon the succeeding generations of Roman Catholics the responsibility to implement this vision.  The vision exhorts the Catholic faithful to identify with the marginalized and to transform unjust structures by means of the renewal of the individual who is reconciled with God and others in Christ.  However, the implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s vision for evangelization is hindered by ideological differences which have severed the interdependence between the transformation of the individual and of dehumanizing structures called by the council’s vision.  The cause of this disjunction lays in the theological crisis precipitated by the twentieth century theological shift that embraced historical consciousness, and in particular modern forms of biblical interpretation.  The aim of this thesis is to determine a model for biblical interpretation that, by reconciling this division, can assist in the application of the total Second Vatican Council’s vision of evangelization.

This paper argues that the Mexican revolution played a formative role in the construction of modern Mexican Catholicism, while Catholic politics fundamentally shaped the outcome of the 1910 revolution. The argument analyzes several distinct but related moments and their constitutive movements. Catholic social and political movements sought to 1) restore religion to secular society, 2) govern, 3) protest revolutionary fiat, 4) confront anticlericalism, 5) mobilize emerging civil society in an era of mass politics through organized labor, and 6) ultimately channel this legacy of religious-based identity through defense leagues that opted for armed conflict over political negotiation. Catholic lay associations included the Guadalupan Workers, a vanguard movement of provincial intellectuals that operated between 1909 and 1914; the National Catholic Party, which competed electorally and governed in western Mexico between 1911 and 1914; sustained parish-based movements of protest, boycott...

Los cristianos terminamos el padrenuestro pidiendo a Dios: Líbranos de todo mal. Jesús nos ofrece esa liberación mediante una vida espiritual cristiana, pero para conseguirla debemos liberarnos de ciertos conceptos erróneos sobre la espiritualidad que la mantienen relegada. Este libro, dirigido a todo cristiano que desee vivir el Evangelio de Jesucristo de una manera plena y liberadora, nos enseña cómo lograrlo y nos explica cuál es nuestra identidad humana y cristiana ante el Dios en el que creemos.
.... Más allá de la devoción nos invita a crecer en lo que significa ser cristiano.

Es la propia traducción del autor de su libro original Beyond Piety.

This essay examines, using Foucault's concept of heterotopias and the Foucauldian notion of surveillance, the Catholic sickroom as a sacred space, created and managed by women religious, where women could be mediators of the sacred. It considers how women religious shaped the meanings of the sickroom using a salvific spiritual message found in the directives, actions and bodies of the sister-nurse. By examining the Catholic sickroom as a crisis heterotopia, the multiplicity of meanings which were present in this ‘real place’ emerges. Catholic women religious in England provided alternate sites of medical treatment for Catholics where the medical and the sacred could co-exist. They entered into social relationships through a cultural discourse that structured their work as ‘caring’, yet they also took the opportunity to mould the religious practices and behaviour of patients within these spaces. The heterotopian place of the Catholic sickroom exposed the ‘real space’ where women ministered in all but sacramental ways to the spiritual needs of patients. This study positions women religious as key protagonists in the development of the sacredness of the sickroom as a social space thereby expanding the spheres of influence of women. The Catholic sickroom, both in the institution and in the home, provided an alternate social space where the politics of religion, theology, and gender added to the complex meanings of the sickroom.

Despite the fact that many church going members would like gays and lesbians to leave the Catholic Church, there is a sizable amount of them who refuse to leave. Both the Catholic Church and the gay and lesbian community have organized themselves in to groups with the finality of permitting gays and lesbians to remain within the Church, under different conditions. The Catholic sponsored Courage seeks to allow gays and lesbians in as long as they renounce the gay and lesbian life style and attempt to live chastely. The gays and lesbians who reject this option have constituted themselves in to groups like Dignity and Other Sheep which intend to modify the Church´s discriminatory stance on homosexuality in the future by finding ways to circumvent Catholicism’s historically negative attitude towards homosexuality. The biggest hurdle gays and lesbians have in their dealings with the Church is that their sexual actions, the very actions that are an undeniably important part of their persona and which has helped them primarily to define themselves as a minority,  are seen as sinful by the Church.



In order to revert the perception that homosexual acts equal a sin it is important for the members of the gay and lesbian community to find an explanation to why they have same sex preferences. This thesis is written under the assumption that homosexuality cannot be cured under the guidelines the Church currently offers and as the organization Courage envisions it. Celibacy is undoubtedly an option for the people who wish to pursue it, but not one that many gays and lesbians find realistic in their lives. Their hope is to find ways to justify homosexual relations within Catholicism that have a positive message for homosexuals whether they are single or living as couples. 



Gays and lesbians that want to be accepted by the Catholic Church have attempted to find the answers that justify their homosexuality, with the hope of undermining the premise that they are acting sinfully. There have been two arguments to justify acceptance on the part of the Church of gays and lesbians: one argument was used by John Boswell who attempted to demonstrate that Christianity had at one time accepted gays and lesbians within its fold, and if it had done so in the past, then it could do so in the present.



There are downfalls to this argument, particularly that the Church has used History itself in the guise of tradition to justify the persecution of people who engaged in sodomitical acts for centuries. Another way gays and lesbians have searched for acceptance is by claiming that same sex preference is inborn, thus natural and if it is natural it cannot be sinful. This arguments has several weaknesses as well, which will not be explained fully but can be exemplified with two controversies: the idea that a pedophile or an alcoholic could claim that their desires are genetically predisposed, like homosexuality, and thus makes them less accountable for their actions, can be used to deny homosexuals legal rights. Just because at some point it can be proved that pedophilia is genetic does not mean that society will give them a free pass to engage in sexual intercourse with children, the same with an alcoholic who due to his drinking may be responsible for hurting other people because he drove irresponsibly. It is expected in western society that the individual can and should control urges that damage the fabric of societies well being. These arguments are used against homosexuality as well, if it is genetic they should still restrain themselves from acting on their instincts.



The second controversy this argument causes is that if homosexuality is due to genetics the parents of future children will be able to determine the sexual preference of their unborn child, and that would mean that homosexuality would probably disappear even for parents would surely opt for heterosexuality for their children with the best intentions for the welfare of their unborn child. At this moment the arguments may seem moot, particularly because what causes homosexuality has not been determined, so gays and lesbians are left trying to bargain with the Church using the essentialist and constructionist argument when it suits them. This thesis concludes that the best way to get the Church to accept gays and lesbians is using the argument that in essence gays and lesbians are born with those preferences. The argument lessens the guilt of the parties before the Church’s eyes and may be used as a dialogue starter between both parties. This discourse may be perceived as optimistically naïve, but the counter argument, the one that ascertains sexuality can be chosen, and gays and lesbians can change their sexual preferences to become heterosexual brings an ending to any discussion of assimilation between both groups, with the Church alleging that they must become heterosexual once more or else they are breaking the laws of God.