“Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants at an International Congress Organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life”
See the text of Pope Benedict XVI’s Nov. 7, 2008, address on organ donation and defining death.
Category: Beliefs & practices
“End of Life Decisions”
See an Oct. 9, 2009, report from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly that explores end-of-life issues.
“Trace of Thought is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient”
Read a Feb. 3, 2010, New York Times article that discusses the results of the new brain imaging study.
“When Are You Dead? Science Just Made the Work of Religion a Bit More Difficult”
Read a Feb. 16, 2010, column by By Arri Eisen at ReligionDispatches.org about the religious element to end-of-life issues.
“Catholic Directive May Thwart End-Of-Life Wishes”
Read a Feb. 27, 2010, article from Kaiser Health News about a Catholic directive on end-of-life issues.
“Pope slams human organ trade, warns on transplants”
Pope Benedict XVI delivered an address to a Vatican conference on organ donation in which he said that “where certainty has not been reached the principle of precaution must prevail.” Read about the address in an Nov. 7, 2008, article posted by Reuters.
“At the Vatican, not all voices are created equal”
Catholic teaching on the definition of death and the ethics of organ harvesting appears to be in flux. In the latter half of 2008 the issue came to the fore when the Vatican newspaper published a front-page column calling for a re-examination of the definition of brain death. Read an article about the letter posted by the […]
“YU ethics expert censures rabbis over brain-stem death”
A conference in Jerusalem in early January 2011 debated the brain-versus-breathing parameter. The issue has been in the news in Israel since Israeli soccer legend Avi Cohen was left brain dead after a December motorcycle accident. His bodily functions ceased after eight days, and his family retreated from a previous commitment to donate his organs despite being […]
“RCA Backs Off Stand On Brain Death For Transplants”
In November 2010, the Rabbinical Council of America, the central body of Modern Orthodox rabbis in the U.S., circulated a detailed report raising questions as to whether the organization’s longstanding acceptance of brain stem death as a definition of death comported with Jewish law. A majority of Jewish legal scholars cited said death was defined by the […]