Université catholique et préoccupation bioéthique

Abstract

Recent developments in médecine and modem biology, as wellas new possibilities offered to human intervention - indeed the manipulation ofman - in the areas of therapeutics and eugenics raise fundamentally new problems of a properly ethical nature which the Catholic university may not avoid. Their trans-scientifïc character demands an interdisciplinary approach, implying - beyond the properly médical or biological sectors - human and Christian «values», capable of illuminât ing and guiding the newly acquired technological capacities. As privileged set t ing for this dialogue, the Catholic university - and especially Us school oftheology - exercises, for the Church and society, an irreplacable function of service wherein teaching and research hâve their rôle. The author suggests certain Unes of orientation and proposes their underlying conditions in this new period of the Church and the world.