ThM 599D:
EXAMINATION 
 

monk writing, Besancon, BM 434, 1372

MIDTERM EXAMINATION

To be completed and returned within two weeks.

In your answers, when you refer (as you should!) to numbered sections of Catholic Teaching Documents (canons, encyclicals, the Catechism, etc.) DO NOT cut and paste the text into your answer.  SUMMARIZE ACCURATELY what the relevant text says, just as you would in any real pastoral situation.

Please answer both questions

1) An emergency-room physician in your parish asks for an appointment with you. He wishes to know whether it is permissible to prescribe a drug that prevents pregnancy by preventing the fertilized zygote (actually a blastocyst) from implanting in the lining of the uterus.  He raises this question because he has read that some Catholic theologians claim that the beginnings of “personhood” are delayed until some time after conception.  He thinks this has something to do with twinning and the infusion of the soul. 

What do you tell him?  What, if anything, do you recommend that he read?


2) The director of religious education in your parish has discovered a website that claims that there was a time in the early church when early abortions were permitted (http://www.hopeclinic.com/AbortionHistory.htm).  She asks you whether this is true and asks for some sources she can use in teaching.


How do you respond?

3) A 30-year old man in your parish tells you he has been told that there is a kind of stem-cell research that the Catholic Church supports.  He wants you to tell him more about this.

What do you tell him?




FINAL EXAMINATION

To be completed and returned withinn one week.

In your answers, when you refer (as you should!) to numbered sections of Catholic Teaching Documents (canons, encyclicals, the Catechism, etc.) DO NOT cut and paste the text into your answer.  SUMMARIZE ACCURATELY what the relevant text says, just as you would in any real pastoral situation.

Please answer THREE of the following five questions

1) A twenty-six year old married woman asks you, her pastor, for an appointment.  She tells you during the meeting that she has been happily married to her husband for three years.  She explains that although she used birth control pills before they were married, she stopped using contraceptives after they had been married for six months, because they wished – and still want - to have a child.  They have been trying to have a child for more than two years, but without success.  She tells you she wants to understand and follow the Church’s teaching, but that she and her husband are “almost desperate” to have a child.  She plans to visit an infertility clinic, but she wants to know what approaches to infertility are permitted by the Church.

What do you tell her?  What resources do you recommend to her?

 

 2).A thirty-four year old woman and her thirty-five year old husband ask to see you, their pastor.  You know them well: they are both lawyers who married in their early thirties, and you remember the Sunday, six weeks ago, when they announced to you after mass that they were overjoyed at being pregnant with their first child.  Three days ago the woman had a pre-natal visit, including an ultrasound examination, and she was given bad news.  She was told that their child appears to have a condition called “cystic hygroma”, which has caused cystic growths on the child’s neck, and perhaps in other parts of the body.  An amnioentesis (withdrawal of amniotic fluid) revealed that the child also has “Turner’s Syndrome”, a chromosomal abnormality.  The obstetrician has recommended that the woman have an abortion.  The woman and her husband want to know what the Church teaches about situations like this.

What do you say, and what do you recommend they do?  What questions do you suggest they ask the obstetrician?

 

 3) A couple in your parish have just given birth to their second child.  The child was born with a condition called “anencephaly”, and the parents have been told the child will probably die in a few hours, perhaps a few days at the most.  The condition is untreatable and is always fatal.  The doctors have asked the parents’ permission not to start any intravenous lines or respirator, and they recommend that cardio-pulmonary resuscitation not be started if the child’s heart stops beating.  The parents are uncertain what to do, and are particularly concerned about a papal document that they believe requires that artificial nutrition and hydration always be offered to severely ill persons.

What do you tell them?

 

4) An emergency-room physician in your parish asks for an appointment with you. He wishes to know whether it is permissible to prescribe a drug that prevents pregnancy by preventing the fertilized zygote (actually a blastocyst) from implanting in the lining of the uterus.  He raises this question because he has read that some Catholic theologians claim that the beginnings of “personhood” are delayed until some time after conception.  He thinks this has something to do with twinning and the infusion of the soul. 

 What do you tell him?  What, if anything, do you recommend that he read?).

  

5) The director of religious education in your parish has discovered a website that claims that there was a time in the early church when early abortions were permitted (http://www.hopeclinic.com/AbortionHistory.htm).  She asks you whether this is true and asks for some sources she can use in teaching.

 How do you respond?

 


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