Center Director Carter Snead addressed a reception hosted at the Synod on the Family in Rome October 20. The gathering, cohosted by the Center for Ethics and Culture and Cardinal Timothy Dolan (Archdiocese of New York), was attended by Synod fathers, clergy, and members of the media. Professor Snead spoke on the relationship between the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell vs. Hodges and the work of the Synod:

In the domain of law and policy, expressive individualism holds that human desires are the source of fundamental rights. Expressive individualism underwrites the jurisprudence of abortion rights in the U.S. It anchors the arguments for unlimited access to dehumanizing and dangerous technologies of assisted reproduction. It undergirds the U.S. regulation compelling the Little Sisters of the Poor to facilitate access to contraception and abortifacients to their employees. And it justifies no-fault divorce. When operationalized in law and policy, expressive individualism often becomes a grave threat to the weakest and most vulnerable, who are seen as burdensome obstacles to the projects of the strong.

By contrast, the Church's vision of persons and our shared life together is one in which we are understood to be embodied souls (not mere wills), whose embodiment has meaning. We live not in isolation, but situated in relationships of solidarity and reciprocal indebtedness. Others have claims on us and we on them, whether we choose them or not. What is fundamental about persons is not that they can construct and pursue future-directed plans, but that they are made in the image and likeness of God, deserving of unconditional love and protection.

Read his full remarks here.

Read More

On Monday, October 5, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the controversial "End of Life Option Act" into law, making physician-assisted suicide legal in the nation's most populous state. Center Director Carter Snead called the decision "selfish and short-sighted" in a statement released today:

Quoting the highly personal terms in which Brown had cast his decision — “In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” the governor said — Snead insisted that “Gov. Brown and those like him — affluent, privileged, able-bodied and with supportive families — are not the ones who will pay the price for this new ‘freedom.’”

“What Gov. Brown should have been reflecting on instead,” Snead said, “was the poor, the disabled, the marginalized and the elderly who are now exposed to grave and lethal new risks of fraud, abuse, mistake and coercion. He should have been reflecting on those who are suffering from untreated, but treatable, depression or badly managed, but manageable, pain, people for whom the path of least resistance is now self-administration of lethal drugs.

Read the full statement here.

Read More

The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture will award the 2016 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to the Little Sisters of the Poor and their Mother Provincial, Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire.

“For more than 175 years, the Little Sisters of the Poor have dedicated their lives to humble service of the most vulnerable among us,” said O. Carter Snead, William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. “Their work and witness embody the goods at the heart of the Evangelium Vitae Medal. Their unwavering defense of the unborn in the HHS mandate litigation, alongside their longstanding work to care for the elderly poor, offers a beautiful and powerful witness to the unique, inviolable dignity of every person, from conception to natural death. Their work is a testament to the radical solidarity and hospitality at the core of the Gospel of Life.”

Read More

The Center was pleased to cosponsor the Papal Pilgrimage made by more than 500 students, faculty, and staff from Notre Dame, Saint Mary's, and Holy Cross to see Pope Francis and participate in the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia September 26-27. Senior Sorin Fellow Michael Infantine spoke with Associate Director Ryan Madison about this historic visit.

Read More

The Center for Ethics and Culture mourns the loss of Amy A. Kass, brilliant teacher and beloved friend, who passed away on Wednesday. CEC public policy fellow Yuval Levin remembers her in a tribute at National Review:

Amy Kass, who died yesterday after a long and courageous struggle with cancer, was without a doubt the best teacher I ever saw in action. What she did so masterfully was, in a sense, simple: She would throw a great work of fiction in front of a group of eager, overconfident students, invite them to open it up and turn it over and over together, and then gradually help them discover that it had actually opened them instead.

Read the rest here. The Center offers its deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. 

Read More

In an op-ed for Fox News, Center Director Carter Snead responded to the recent videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, in which Planned Parenthood executives are filmed discussing compensation for fetal organs harvested after an abortion.

"The American people should be thankful for Dr. Nucatola’s and Gatter’s words, and even for the coarse and graphic manner in which they were delivered," he said. 

"In doing so, they offered a rare glimpse of the horrible truth about the nature and human cost of Planned Parenthood’s work. Thanks to them, Planned Parenthood’s slick corporate image as merely an altruistic defender of women’s health is shattered. Having its true face revealed, the path forward is clear. No minimally decent society can support an organization whose business is killing and harvesting body parts for money. Defund Planned Parenthood now."

Read the rest at FoxNews.com.

Read More

Read More

Over at First Things, Center Faculty Advisory Committee member Francesca Murphy has published a piece regarding Notre Dame's current curriculum review and the perils of goal-based education.

"Faculty often quarrel over curricula. That’s as it should be. A curriculum, especially its core courses required of all students, is an educational institution’s constitution. To tell a young person he must take this or that course announces a university’s highest priorities. This makes a curriculum review a battlefield. At the University of Notre Dame we are presently conducting such a review, and a hot point for debate is whether the university should maintain its requirement of two theology and two philosophy courses. This requirement has long been thought essential to the Catholic mission of Notre Dame. But the “two theology, two philosophy” requirement may not survive this round of curriculum revision."

…

Read More

Frank Bruni’s column on the Catholic Church’s treatment of women could inspire two masters theses in two disciplines. The journalism thesis would take on the shallowness to which opinion writing sinks when the subject matter is religion and women. The pastoral theology thesis would treat women in the Catholic Church today.

Read More

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The last time the House considered this bill, Center Public Policy Fellow Maureen Condic testified before Congress that a fetus can feel pain even before 20 weeks. You can read an excerpt from her testimony below.…

Read More

Call for Papers

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” —Goethe

The University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is pleased to announce its sixteenth annual Fall Conference, "For Freedom Set Free," to be held November 19–21, 2015…

Read More

The Center for Ethics and Culture was pleased to bestow the 2015 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal on Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus at the fifth annual Evangelium Vitae Medal banquet Sunday evening, April 26.

Read More

The following article was written by Center Sorin Fellow Lauren Saunee, who participated in the Center's Medical Ethics Conference in Rome over Spring Break. Lauren is a freshman majoring in science preprofessional studies with a minor in Catholic Social Teaching. She plans to attend medical school after her graduation. This piece originally appeared in the ND campus newspaper, the Irish Rover…

Read More

Below is a piece by Center Director Carter Snead. It was originally published on Public Discourse.

One of the most iconic images from Notre Dame’s storied history is a July 1964 photograph of Father President Theodore Hesburgh standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rev. Martin Luther King at Chicago’s Soldier Field, singing “We Shall Overcome.” The photograph perfectly captures what Notre Dame aspires to be—not merely a world-class community of learning and research, but also, as its founder Father Sorin wrote, “a great force for good in the world” animated by the truths affirmed by the Catholic Church regarding the inalienable and equal dignity of every member of the human family. The image is so powerful because it shows that on that summer day in 1964 it was not merely Father Hesburgh (formidable though he was and continues to be) but the University of Notre Dame—the most important Catholic university in the world—standing in solidarity with our oppressed and marginalized brothers and sisters in their struggle for civil rights.…

Read More