Caritas in veritate collapses distinctions in Catholic moral theology between “social issues” and “life issues.” This note examines Pope Benedict XVI’s “pro-life environmentalism” and the underlying assumptions concerning the meaning of freedom, the contours of nature, and the significance of sexual differentiation on which the pope relies. While the encyclical powerfully critiques liberal Western preoccupation

[Like theology and ethics generally, bioethics has increasingly developed a global consciousness. Controversies over AIDS research and access to affordable AIDS treatment have generated new awareness about the importance of international collaboration as well as the difficulty of achieving moral consensus across economic, political, and cultural divides. Advances in scientific and medical knowledge through initiatives