Archive for the ‘Defending Life’ Category

He is a doctor, priest and moral theologian whose medical training and practice have enriched his understanding and study of bioethics.

With this background, School of Theology and Ministry Associate Professor, Jesuit Father Andrea Vicini, is uniquely equipped to study the complex, and often controversial, ethical issues that have emerged in the wake of technological and scientific advances in health and medicine.

“Fr. Vicini is one of the few specialists in medical ethics who is both a physician and a theologian. His broad international background gives him keen insight into the importance of the social and cultural contexts of medical practice,” said Jesuit Father David Hollenbach, the University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice.  “BC and its students will benefit greatly through his presence.”

“Part of the task and responsibility of reflecting theologically on [ethical] issues,” said Fr. Vicini, who joined the STM faculty last fall, “is that you need to combine different elements that are relevant for theological thinking. First is the tradition — theological insight from other theologians in the past and the present. Second is the magisterial, or official, teaching. The other is the experience of the people. This way the universal and the particular are given consideration.”

When dealing with the end of life, he says, the Christian tradition is to see it as a process and to consider the patient’s consciousness, identity and network of relationships. Ethical challenges, however, arise from the interaction of new technologies and end-of-life issues, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which can be used to determine if brain-injured patients previously thought to be in a vegetative state may, in fact, be reclassified as being in a minimally conscious state.

The technology is still very primitive, but the concept raises issues such as possibility of recovery, access to quality rehabilitative care and family support, according to Fr. Vicini, whose article on this topic will be published later this year in The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Another emerging field of interest for Fr. Vicini is oncofertility, which looks at preserving the fertility of cancer patients. “Advances in cancer treatment for children and young adults have the positive result of recovery but also the negative result of infertility. Technology is available now that can be used to preserve fertility and restore, not only the patients’ health, but their wholeness.” He wrote on the topic of ovarian tissue transplantation for the journal Theological Studies.

A native of Italy who earned his medical degree from the University of Bologna, Fr. Vicini was born with a physical deformity affecting his left hand. He wanted to become a doctor “to help people, to heal and cure. The experience of disability in my life has helped me feel close to people in need.” He was drawn to pediatric practice in particular, he said, because of its holistic nature and opportunity to build relationships with patients and their families. “You get to witness the healing power of medicine in a special way.”

Discernment led Fr. Vicini to join the Society of Jesus in 1987. “I was attracted to the Jesuit commitment to help people in need in various frontiers around the world through education, social justice work and interactions between scientists and other religions and cultures.” He was ordained a priest in 1996.

To read the full story about Fr. Vicini at Boston College, please click here: [Boston College's New Bioethics Professor]

The Ignatian Pro-Life Network, a union of pro-life groups from Jesuit high schools, colleges, universities and parishes across the U.S., held the annual Mass for Life & Rally yesterday in Washington, D.C.

Marchers attended the Mass for Life at St. Aloysius Church along with the Rally for Life following the Mass, to hear speakers and student reports from schools before joining the March for Life. Jesuit Father Joe Laramie was the guest homilist, the full video of which is now available:

To learn about Jesuit Conference’s statement on the abortion issue, read “Standing for the Unborn”.

To follow the Ignatian Pro-Life Network, visit the Ignatian Pro-Life Network page on Facebook.

The Ignatian Pro-Life Network, a union of pro-life groups from Jesuit high schools, colleges, universities and parishes across the U.S., invites participants to the annual Mass for Life & Rally on Jan. 23, 2011 in Washington, D.C.

Marchers are encouraged to attend the Mass for Life at 9:30 a.m. at St. Aloysius Church along with the Rally for Life following the Mass, to hear speakers and student reports from schools before heading out for the March for Life.

In preparation, groups can also read the Jesuit Conference’s statement on the abortion issues, “Standing for the Unborn”, before the march.

To follow the Ignatian Pro-Life Network’s plans for the 2012 Mass and Rally for Life for Jesuit institutions and to sign up to attend, visit the Ignatian Pro-Life Network page on Facebook.

They regularly had to dodge the bullets during Lebanon’s civil war. But, while many people were fleeing the country, four Dutch Jesuits stayed to carry on with their work. During a recent ordination Jubilee celebration, they took a break from the festivities to take a look back at their wartime service.

The four tenacious Dutch clerics were celebrating their 50th anniversaries as Roman Catholic priests and their 60th anniversaries as members of the Jesuit order. Their time in Lebanon has meant that Jesuit Fathers Theo Vlugt, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, Paul Brouwers and Michael Brenninkmeijer have become devoted to the country.

“If you make yourself at home somewhere, it becomes your home. It’d take us a long time to get used to the Netherlands again,” Fr. Brouwers explains. He, like his colleagues, is in his eighties. For years, he headed a successful Beirut publisher.

Fr. Theo Vlugt, who was born and bred in Amsterdam, sometimes had to eat tinned brown beans for weeks on end during the long and bloody civil war (1975–1990). “I occasionally think back and ask myself: did it really happen?” He was often seen by Dutch people as the face of Lebanon during the civil war.

For instance during the ‘One million for a shoe’ appeal in 1989, which raised three million Dutch guilders to buy shoes for Lebanese children. The campaign was inspired by Vlugt who headed a primary school in a poor district of Beirut. “They sometimes came to school with plastic bags tied round their feet,” he explains.

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The Richard A. McGarrity, SJ, lecture series hosted by the Wisconsin Province of Jesuits recently featured Jesuit Father Rick Curry, a noted author, actor, teacher and baker. The breakfast program focused on how the community can better support veterans who are returning to society and the workforce.

Known to many throughout the Jesuit world, Curry is the founder of the National Theater Workshop of the Handicapped (NTWH) and is the director of the Academy for Veterans at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In 2003, NTWH offered a new program called the Wounded Warriors Writers Workshop, and his vocation took on yet another dimension.

“The program taught the dramatic monologue to recently returning disabled veterans from both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Working in small groups with talented young writing teachers, these valiant men and women struggled artistically to tell their stories in a format where they could later act them out on stage,” Curry said. “We were delighted that the arts could play such a significant role in the healing of these heroic Americans. The experience of writing and acting out their story opened the floodgates of emotions and this led many who participated in the writers program to seek further help and counseling.”

After more than 40 years as a Jesuit brother, Curry felt encouraged to seek priesthood whereby he could work “not only artistically with the wounded warriors but sacramentally as well.” Curry’s ability to become a priest took special permission from the Vatican because he was born with only one arm, and Canon Law requires two hands to celebrate Mass. It is a challenge he considers a gift, because it provides an automatic bond with disabled veterans.

With advances in modern medicine, soldiers are returning from war, but many are casualties just the same, whether in body, mind or both, Curry said.

“Imagine a young man whose body has been severed at the waist,” Curry said. “He’s lost so much, but he’s alive. Just 19, he needs to rethink what he will do with the rest of his life. We will lose many more men and women than the fatality charts show if we do not step up for them. I urge everyone to use his or her imagination to identify ways he or she can provide support to our veterans with disabilities and/or post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of people can do much more than they think.”