Bioethics in Catholic Theology and Scientific Bioethics

Every creature is good and subject to the principle of solidarity that everyone has been blessed and gifted with life by God. Therefore, we cannot have one without the other, and no man exists without an animal. Over the last several decades, our world has been confronted with many ethical problems and ethics is being more and more sought after in spheres of human conduct and profession. Man has acquired enormous power over the world and over life itself, but he has also, willingly or not, become more responsible for ‘the threats’ against his very life, as well as against the life of other creatures. Within this context a discussion on biocentrism has ensued, which should replace Christian biblical anthropocentrism. At any rate, man has encountered a challenge to expand his moral sphere because nature needs his protection, whereas he no longer needs to protect himself from nature. It is exactly this point that poses a paradox: only man can give protection to nature and the whole of life within it. Having crossed all limits, he has to establish them yet again. Once again, he has to search for these limits within himself, which is exactly what original Christianity demands: to act according to one’s pure belief (St. Peter). The aim of this work lies in trying to answer the questions of how to preserve life and healthy environment, how to achieve harmony between the development and modern ideas and trends as well as to establish the right relationship between man and his environment. The author primarily points out to the rising of pastoral medicine in Catholic theology, whose emergence was caused by the development of medical science and which gradually transforms into today’s bioethics that is acknowledged by the theology. He then proceeds to discuss the disharmony between man and nature, about the rising of the ‘animal rights’ movement, and finally, about the beginnings of scientific and global bioethics which has developed in USA and which has spread throughout the world. However, he also tries to speak about the European path of bioethics stressing the fact that this term is far older because it originated in Germany, in 1927, and which corresponds far better to the concept of integrative bioethics.