The following March 9 email came from lmucatholic@gmail.com.
A new alumni group RENEW LMU has launched a petition. The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that LMU is hiring a new Director of the Bioethics Institute. We call on LMU to hire a Director of Bioethics who agrees with the Jesuit statement, “Standing for the Unborn” which says “All of God’s daughters and sons, particularly the most vulnerable and those yet to be born, must be treated with respect and protected by the laws of our nation.”Will the next LMU Director of Bioethics reject this wisdom?
We invite you to sign our petition to LMU President Burcham asking him to hire a pro-life faculty member as the next Director of Bioethics.
https://renewlmu.com/lettertoburcham/
We hope LMU lives out in a more vibrant way its proclaimed “institutional commitment to Roman Catholicism” of which the Gospel of Life is just one part. So much good takes place at LMU, so many lives are touched. But St. Ignatius always spoke of the “magis,” the “more” that needs to be done. If you would like to advance LMU’s Catholic mission and identity, please sign our letter to President Burcham. The future of LMU hangs in the balance.
Is bioethics another name for Margaret Sanger’s of Planned Parenthood population control for colored people? I learned all I needed to know about Ethics and proper deportment from my mother at home. She had a sixth grade education yet was wiser than university professors. One simple example: “Where you eat you don’t sh*t”. Maybe Loyola Marymount University does not need a director of Bioethics. More crucifixes and confessions would do the trick. If this is considered insufficient then ask some of the student’s mothers to run the department.
What’s even more amusing is that LMU (a very well respected University) now offers a graduate degree in “bio-ethics”! Talk about splitting hairs…devoting an “entire graduate degree program” to this philosophical discipline seems like major overkill, I can see a couple courses in this field, as part of the syllabus for a graduate degree in philosophy or an MBA in business law, but an MA in bio-ethics?…what next… degrees in “underwater basket weaving”?…ROTFLOL!
Colleges and universities are full of courses leading to degrees in the equivalent of underwater basketweaving, which is a big part of why so many college graduates, at all levels, are unemployed or underemployed.
However, there is such a field of endeavor known as bio-ethics, though there are many more people interested in the subject than there are people interested in hiring people who studied the subject, generally to little or no avail. It is the functional equivalent of underwater basketweaving, therefore, and in that regard your comment is spot on.
However, colleges and universities take boastful pride in not being “trade schools,” as they scornfully call it, producing future employees for our corporations, and the ivory tower dwellers scorn schools of business, law and medicine for producing employees, whom they consider robots for hire, rather than eggheads who sit around and think all day for a living, publish or perish, and debate endlessly with other seemingly useless philosophers and paid thinkers, for which there is generally little demand except in colleges and universities, as a rule.
There are exceptions, but this is the general drift of our world, which does need only a few thinkers but lots of productive workers and providers of services. When the doctor suggests you pull the plug on your loved ones, you generally don’t employ a bioethicist, but do ask a trained medical services provider to do the dirty work for you; that is, unless you turn to someone else to help you decide what to do.
In that case, most of us faced with that horrific predicament would likely turn to our parish priest, who will consult with us on a profound basis for no fee, having been exposed to the principles debated at length by professional bioethicists.
I pray I will never have to face this choice, but I must say that as I watched my mother suffering so horribly before she died a few hours later of cancer, I questioned whether it was merciful not to help people in such anguishing misery. It is pure anguish to watch your loved one die slowly, suffering while you can do nothing to help. I have compassion for those who have decided to pull the plug, hoping they do so out of love, though I could never do it myself, as my faith prohibits me from playing God, nor do I wish to.
Our Lady knows all about this profound anguish of watching a loved one suffer before dying, though only sorrow and pity show in the face of Mary as depicted in La Pieta. I don’t perceive relief in her artistically expressed countenance.
For myself, when my mother passed from this life into eternity, there was great sorrow in my own loss and great joy for her release, together with great hope for mercy for her eternal soul. The overwhelming emotions of a situation like that cannot be described by the mere use of the English language.
There is a place in this world for the bioethicist, but we do not yet know exactly what it is, nor do they agree on what they should be about. The debates on the exquisitely complex components of decision-making are endless and exhausting, but as usual, the principles of the Catholic faith stand ready to assist families facing the sometimes tragic consequences of the age of modern medicine in which we live.
Life was so much easier for us all when only God was in control of whether we lived or died; insert the hand of man, and a whole new industry of professional anguishing is called into being. Many horrible consequences can emanate from that which is called medical progress.
MaryAnne Leonard,
I hope this brings comfort to you: There are vast Graces to be gained by the acceptance of suffering. Your mother’s suffering may very well have been her keys to Heaven!
God bless, yours in their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Thank you, Kenneth. Your comments were read and received with appreciation and concurrence. Bless you for sharing them.
God bless you always as well,
Maryanne
The National Catholic Bioethics Center (www.ncbcenter.org) is an orthodox organization that speaks to many issues that Catholics meet on a daily basis. They help to explain complex medical issues (ie,tube feedings, hydration, etc.) and give doctrinal support for their defense of life.
I don’t have any info on what the LMU program is like, but we do need bioethicists that have a good Catholic foundation. These are the people who our “Catholic” hospitals turn to for advise on protocols, etc. Unfortunately many of them come out of programs that are sadly lacking.
If you ever need information regarding ethical end of life issues or medical care, the NCBC are the folks to speak with, both to confirm the things you already know from your parents or Catholic upbringing or for references to be able to provide Catholic responses to friends or family who are not aware or educated in the Church’s doctrines. Good people, good organization.
They are the complete opposite of PP.
But LMU doesn’t require a mandatum, does it?