Last Updated: June 29, 2006

• World
• Notre Dame
• Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture
• Archives
• Student Journals
  • Greer Hannan
  • Brian Boyd
  • John Sikorski

Previously Featured News and Events

2004

• 10/19  On Tuesday, October 19, students from 14 of America's elite universities published an ad defending the right to life of all human beings - particularly humans in the embryonic stage of life. These students - from schools including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Georgetown, and MIT - authored the ad and raised the necessary funds to run full-page ads in all of their campus papers. View the ad here.
  
• 10/6  Rebecca Dresser, member of the President's Council on Bioethics and professor of law and ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, addressed issues of justice raised by stem-cell research at a recent conference at The Catholic University of America. The story.
  
• 10/1  The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture: Changing the Questions
  
• 9/24  The Catholic News Service reports on the Cristo Rey-model high schools, a new initiative in Catholic education that allows students to pay their tuition and gain work experience through school-sponsored corporate internships. The story.
  
• 9/17  Read Center Director David Solomon's response to the latest reports on pediatric euthanasia in the Netherlands. The text.
  
• 8/27  Gerald McKenny, professor of theology and director of the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values at the University of Notre Dame, comments on the issue of stem-cell research. The story.
  
• 8/26  NY judge rules that partial-birth abortion ban is unconstitutional. The story.
  
• 8/25  In an effort to promote reconciliation, Pope John Paul II is returning an icon to the Russian Orthodox Church. The story.
  
• 8/24  The New York Times reports on the progress of the latest stem-cell research in the U.S. The story.
  
• 8/11  British scientists have been granted permission to clone human embryos for therapeutic purposes. The story.
  
• 7/29  The New York Times reports on the latest developments and tactics in the stem-cell research debate.  The story.
  
• 6/28  The BBC reports on a new type of ultrasound scan.  The story, the pictures, and a video are available here.
  
• 6/21  The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement on "Catholics in Political Life."  The story.  The statement.
  
• 6/12  ZENIT reported on a new document on the life issues produced by the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales. The document is entitled Cherishing Life. In its foreword, ZENIT reports, the document says that living in a society that enables us to flourish "require(s) the building of an ethos of life that protects persons from womb to tomb, especially the most vulnerable." Yet, the document perceives "signs of a culture of death," in such factors as abortion, pressure for euthanasia, diminishing respect for the elderly and a lack of protection for marriage and the family. Find the entire document here.
  
• 6/10  Read The New York Times' examination of the ethical dilemmas raised by doctors assisting in state-sanctioned executions. The story.
  
• 6/4  Bush Meets Pope.  The story.  See also a transcript of the Pope's address to Bush and the text of Bush's medal presentation to the Pope.
  
• 6/1  Late-Term Abortion Ban ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.  The story.
  
• 3/31  Read the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World. Full text.
  
• 3/22 John Paul II spoke out against withholding food and water from patients in a "vegetative state," likening this practice to euthanasia. In a related statement, he noted that what is considered a poor quality of life does not justify euthanasia. These statements may be found here.
  
• 3/9  Pope John Paul II appointed Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.  The story.
  
• 3/3  Law School Professor Rick Garnett comments on the recent Catholic Charities case in California, published by The National Review Online.
  
• Read reviews of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ by Tom Hibbs and Center Advisory Board Member Michael Novak, published by The National Review Online.
  
• 2/04  Statements of Bishop John M. D'Arcy on Notre Dame events.  Read his statements regarding The Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film Festival held at Notre Dame.
  

2003

• November  Grass-Roots Effort Blocks Construction of TX abortion Clinic.  Cybercast News Service reports that a group of pro-life construction workers in Austin, Tex., are refusing to build a facility for Planned Parenthood in which abortions would be performed.  See the story here.   More information about this boycott can be found here.
  
• 7/6  Paul Ricoeur Receives Paul VI International Award.  The story.
  
• May  The death of Bernard Williams.  Obituaries written in tribute: Jane O'Grady and John Haldane.
  
• 4/20  Laci Peterson Case tied to Roe Debate, highlighting the clash between fetal homicide laws and pro-choice organizations.  The story.
  
• March  "Standing for the Unborn," a statement on their opposition to abortion released by the Society of Jesuits in the United States on the Feast of the Annunciation.  It and other information is available on their website.
  

2001

• Fall Center Fellow Darin Davis Receives Awards.  Darin joined us in fall 2001 from St. Louis University, being one of six SLU Ph.D. candidates to receive a University Dissertation Fellowship. Darin was also presented with the James Collins Award for outstanding graduate student in philosophy at St. Louis. He wrote on moral particularism during his time at the Center.  You can read about Darin's achievements in the Amarillo Globe-News.

• August  Former Center Undergraduate Assistant, Nathaniel Hannan, defends his generation.  Check out the July 30-August 6, 2001 issue of America Magazine  to see Nathaniel's letter in response to Eugune Kennedy's piece, "Who Can Minister?"

• June Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow suffered a fatal heart attack on the feast of Corpus Christi. The subsequent tributes and the funeral wholly confirmed his reputation as one of the leading Churchmen. It was he who introduced the saving-life initiative and it was under his patronage that the Sisters of the Gospel of Life were founded.  See John Haldane's tribute.

• June  Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot's long anticipated monograph is now available in the U.S. from Oxford University Press.  More.

• March  Ralph McInerny's obituary of Jean McCall Oesterle.  Jean Oesterle was a longtime member of the Notre Dame philosophical community and a well-known translator of Aquinas's philosophical works.

• January  Elizabeth Anscombe died on January 5, 2001 at the age of eighty-one. Anscombe was one of the twentieth century's most important moral philosophers and a dedicated Catholic. Professor Haldane's piece is a philosophical tribute.
  

2000

• Ralph McInerny, member of the Center's Advisory Board, delivered the prestigous Gifford Lectures for 1999-2000.  The text of those lectures, entitled Characters in Search of Their Author, has been published by the University of Notre Dame Press. McInerny examines the history of natural theology and defends its viability in the modern age. Read John O'Callaghan's review of the lectures.