This lecture was delivered in Oxford at “Blackfriars” on February 12. Blackfriars is the historic Dominican presence at Oxford University, dating its original founding to 1221. It is a Dominican Priory, a House of Studies associated with the University of St. Thomas-Angelicum in Rome, and a “Permanent Private Hall” (equivalent to a “College”) of Oxford University. The lecture was co-sponsored by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre and the Las Casas Institute, two Blackfriars-related organizations concerned with the promotion of human dignity and bioethical research.
It was given by:
ARCHBISHOP VINCENZO PAGLIA
President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and
Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for
Marriage and Family Sciences
Oxford, February 12, 2018
Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored Guests, Dear Friends All
First of all, I would like to thank you for your invitation and for
choosing such an important subject for our time together. The question of
human dignity is very much in the forefront of public debate, in the field
of bioethics and in wider contexts that challenge social coexistence as a
whole. It should be noted, however, that despite being widely discussed
and encouraged, dignity itself is given very different interpretations, and
the term is applied in situations where we find its usage strange, for
example, with respect to euthanasia. For this reason, it is important for us
to consider this question together so that we can reach a consensus on what
is a particularly complex issue.
Read the full lecture transcript here.