Holy Cross Lecture to Address Global Access to Healthcare
Cahill calls for progressive religious thinkers in healthcare debate
Lisa Sowle Cahill, the J. Donald Monan Professor of Theology at Boston College, will give a lecture titled “Catholic Social Teaching, Bioethics and Justice” on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library, Smith Hall, at the College of the Holy Cross.
The lecture is one of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity, presented by the College’s Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture. It is free and open to the public.
Cahill will talk about access to healthcare around the world as well as healthcare debates happening in the United States from the perspective of a theological ethicist and progressive Catholic. Cahill does not want to cede the “religious perspective” to fundamentalists and the pro-life movement, nor does she want to submit to a political liberalism that champions individual autonomy as holy writ. In her book Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change (Georgetown University Press, 2005), she calls for progressive religious thinkers and believers to join in the effort to reclaim the best of their traditions through jointly engaging political forces at both community and national levels. Just access to health care, she argues, must be the number one priority for this type of “participatory bioethics.”
A former president of the Society of Christian Ethics and the Catholic Theological Society of America, Cahill is also the author of Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 1996); Family: A Christian Social Perspective (Fortress, 2000); ‘Love Your Enemies’: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory (Fortress, 1994); and other books.
To learn more about these events and find lectures online, visit www.holycross.edu/mcfarlandcenter.
About the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:
Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College’s commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope. The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.
For additional information, please contact Cristal Steuer at 508-793-2419.
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I applaud Dr. Cahill’s call to steer clear of the extremes of fundamentalism and egoism. I regret, however, her lumping of the pro life movement with the former. Indeed, the defense of life–from abortion, war, the death penalty, and disease–should be the issue on which progressive and conservative believers can and must find common ground.