Thinking Ethics

Vatican's position on bioethical issues

The vatican has just issues it's guidelines on bioethical issues. The Catholic Church is agains in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research. More in this article from The New York Times.

First Female Episcopal Church Leader !

Is faith and leadership gender specific ? The Episcopal General Convention thinks not, and has elected Katharine Jefferts Schori as Bishop to head the Episcopal Church. This position meets with the heads of the other religions, and sets policy for the Church.

Of course some conservative dioceses are most upset by this, and the Anglican Communion Network that represents 10 conservative dioceses and more than 900 Episcopal parishes is debating wether to break from the Church.  Since she was elected by a democratic process, I do find this peculiar.

Katharine Jefferts Schori has a BS in Biology from Stanford University, a MS and a PhD from Oregon State University and a Master's in Divinity from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She is married with one daughter. I would have thought her qualifications were sufficient. Apparently, one of the issues is that she voted for the first gay bishop, and oh yes, she is female...

Good article by Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post here.

Ethics and atheism

An interesting article on the subject of atheism and ethics is on the bbc site (link). Summed up by the author, Hannu Kauppila, "The debate is not about what's right and what's wrong, but rather what actually exists out there in the universe".