Positions that the Catholic faith holds on key issues have been
developed for over 2000 years on a philosophical basis of reason, yet
it’s hard to get a decent hearing for the Catholic view in Australia’s
pluralist society. The University of Notre Dame Australia is bringing
in the big academic guns to do something about it. Anthony Barich
reports.
By Anthony Barich
A powerful conglomerate of Southeast and East Asian Catholic colleges will descend on the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney next week to bring the Church’s teachings to the forefront of relevance to specific cultural circumstances.
From August 27-30 UNDA hosts 15 countries at the 17th annual conference of the Association of South East Asian Catholic Colleges and Universities (ASEACCU) at the Menzies Hotel in Sydney, with the theme: “Building a Culture of Life: Catholic Higher Education and the Challenges of Bioethics”.
UNDA Sydney Deputy Vice Chancellor Hayden Ramsey told The Record that for too long Catholic teaching has been perceived as not being responsive to practical realities, as evidenced by the global outrage when Pope Benedict XVI recently said condoms would not solve the AIDS crisis in Africa but make it worse.
Subsequent claims by Edward C Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Centre for Population and Development Studies, that current evidence shows the Pope is right got little airtime or print space in secular media. UNDA plans to change that.
The best Catholic minds from the Oceania region will communicate at UNDA that the Church can speak with authority on the universal effectiveness of its teaching if it shows how it addresses specific situations in all cultures.
The conference, Prof. Ramsey said, will investigate the impact on Catholic Higher Education of recent debates on law, medicine and ethics.
“Developments in bioethics and medical technology have major implications for our societies. The Church provides a body of teaching and reflection which gives guidance for balancing progress with claims of faith and ethics,” he said.
World renowned bio-ethicists such as Oxford graduate and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at UNDA, Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, Associate Prof. Bernadette Tobin (Australian Catholic University), Associate Prof. Nicholas Tonti-Fillippini (John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies), Dr Patrick Gerard Lopez Moral (The University of Santa Tomas, Philippines) and Dr Brigid McKenna (UNDA) will speak.
Topics include: ‘Tradition and the Critique of Consequentialist Bioethics’; ‘Challenging Secularism: Bioethics, Culture and Collaborations’; ‘Respecting Difference While Advancing the Culture of Life’; ‘Culture of Life and the Mission of Catholic Higher Education,’ and ‘Is Bioethics an American Plot.’
Prof. Ramsey, also UNDA’s Dean of Philosophy and Theology, says that Bishop Fisher’s topic, ‘Is Bioethics an American Plot’, is particularly pertinent, addressing whether Catholic bioethical teaching is applicable to Southeast and East Asia, or just a product of the ‘white West’.
“One difficulty people have with the Church’s teachings is that it’s not responsive to the situation on the ground; people think it’s just created in an ivory cathedral and does not engage with practical realities,” Prof. Ramsey said. His experience at the 10th ASEACC conference in August last year in Bandung, Indonesia showed this is not the case, at least in the Muslim world. The conference was addressed by senior Muslim figures who, he said, spoke with great respect of Catholic bioethical wisdom.
“One thing Catholics have extraordinary expertise in is bioethics, so it was great to see the western and eastern bioethics working together,” he said.
This month’s conference will also tap into the vast resources of the best Catholic minds throughout Southeast Asia, as countries within the region like the Philippines are rich in Catholic heritage.
“The faith is incredibly strong in these areas; its representatives were filled with passion for the Church, while their churches are filled with youth, who were excited by World Youth Day 2008 being held in Sydney that many of them had attended,” he said. “There is incredible growth and dynamism in these countries, which I expected in the Philippines, but it is also the case in Indonesia.”
Prof. Ramsey, a Scottish migrant who studied at the University of Edinburgh, said the fact that Manila’s University of Santo Tomas was built before his own alma mater “shows they’ve been dealing with Catholic theological bioethics issues at a very high level for a very long time”.
The primary purpose of the conference, he said, is to encourage and build connections with speakers from the region who are engaging in the public square constantly, as UNDA already has strong connections with Catholic institutions in Europe and the US.
“Australia is way ahead in Catholic bioethics and has a very serious voice here, as the intellectual standard is extremely high,” he said.
The topics to be covered at the conference will reveal that the Catholic belief espoused by the academics and lived by “day-to-day Catholics” is parallel with what others in Australian society believe, despite what some parts of secular culture would have them believe.
‘Respecting Difference While
Advancing the Culture of Life’, to be addressed by Professor Moral, will reveal the importance of expressing in the public domain “the Catholic view increasingly that
dare not hold its head up” in the
current climate, Prof. Ramsey said. “The diversity of views is respected (in the public forum) but it’s hard to get a hearing for the Catholic view, and that is a real concern. Diversity doesn’t mean everything but the Catholic position, it’s every position,
“I’m a philosopher, and we believe that whatever your view you get a hearing, so long as you can argue reasons behind your view. Some think the Catholic view isn’t based on reasons – just emotional faith or a rule book issued by Rome; but in fact Catholic faith positions have been hammered out for 2000 years on a philosophical basis of reason.”
The topic ‘Tradition and the Critique of Consequentialist Bioethics’, to be addressed by Associate Professor Bernadette Tobin, Director of the Plunkett of the Centre for Ethics at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney and Reader in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University, will also prove the flawed theory applies on a day-to-day level.
“Some think an action is ok so long as a there is a good result, but people wouldn’t run their own families like that,” Prof Ramsey said.
“For all of us there are basic considerations that come into play, especially in regards to bioethics,” Prof. Ramsey said.
The day before Prof Ramsey spoke to The Record, his own grandmother died. The hospital she was at back in Scotland asked him for permission to stop giving her water as she’s going to die anyway. His answer was no.
“If she’s dying you keep her hydrated until the end,” Prof. Ramsey said. “That’s a Catholic view, and the view of many.”
The clarification of such views in a high-level conference like this comes as Australian States are under increasing pressure from the Greens and the Voluntary Euthanasia Society to pass end-of-life Bills contrary to the Gospel, and to common sense. “This conference will not be pushing Catholic views, but looking at reasons behind the views, from rational faith, built on a platform of philosophy – one that no one’s been yet able to refute,” Prof. Ramsey said.
‘Culture of Life and the Mission of Catholic Higher Education’, to be presented by Dr Brigid McKenna, executive
ofï¬cer for the Life Ofï¬ce in the
Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, will
address the true purpose of Catholic universities.
“If you’re in a Catholic higher education you’re not just there to serve knowledge but serve life, family and faith,”
Prof.Ramsey said.