Justice was the central theme of the pontiff’s Lenten message for 2010. Read the text of the message at the Vatican’s website.

Pope Benedict XVI focused on the the traditional themes of fasting, almsgiving and prayer in his Lenten message for 2011. “The practice of almsgiving is a reminder of God’s primacy and turns our attention towards others,” Benedict writes.

Mark J. Cherry is a philosophy professor at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. He is co-editor of Allocating Scarce Medical Resources: Roman Catholic Perspectives (Georgetown University Press, 2003), senior associate editor of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, senior associate editor of Christian Bioethics and editor in chief of HealthCare Ethics Committee Forum. His book For Sale by […]

Read a 1999 New York Times article about the highly controversial views of Peter Singer of Princeton University. Singer is a philosopher who applies a utilitarian approach to bioethics, and his ideas on infanticide, animal rights, euthanasia and rights of the disabled challenge much thinking in mainstream bioethics.

Read a view on xenotransplantation from the Vatican.

Karen Greenberg is director of the Center on National Security at the Fordham University.

The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald is a research associate professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in the department of oncology. He is also a Jesuit priest with doctorates in molecular genetics and bioethics. His research efforts in science focused on the investigation of abnormal gene regulation in cancer and research on ethical issues in human genetics. […]

Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at Loyola University of Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Ill., is a pluralistic bioethics institute that draws upon its commitment to social justice of the Jesuit and Roman Catholic heritage.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia conducts research and consultations in health care and life sciences in accordance with teachings of the Catholic Church. It consults on life science and medical issues with the Vatican, U.S. bishops, public policy-makers, hospitals and international organizations of all faiths. It publishes two journals, Ethics and Medics and The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.