Marie T. Hilliard
Marie T. Hilliard is a senior fellow with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, where she also serves as director of bioethics and public policy. The center offers a resource guide on Catholicism and the use of vaccines.
Faith: Catholicism
“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.
“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 […]
“Bishops’ document on assisted suicide will be first by full conference”
Read a June 2, 2011, Catholic News Service story about the mid-June meeting of the Catholic hierarchy at which a document officially condemning physician-assisted suicide was up for discussion.
Promoting your work
How can a religion writer get more religion news stories into the paper or on air? By Michael Paulson The Boston Globe* In my experience, editors are always hungry for good stories about any subject, and religion is no exception. To get more religion stories into the paper, apply the same rigorous reporting and writing […]
Working the beat
Do religion writers always write stories for religious holidays? New clergy? Anniversaries? By Melanie Smith The Decatur Daily The routine events of religious life are a challenge to the religion reporter. Is there anything newsworthy about another Easter or Rosh Hashanah or Ramadan? Do readers want to know how their neighbors observe Lent or Divali? […]
Katarina Schuth
Sister Katarina Schuth is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester, Minn., and holds the Endowed Chair for the Social Scientific Study of Religion at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She is an expert on Catholic American seminary education.