A Catholic Biologist in Medicine: Hope for Bioethics

Posted on 22/03/2025 by Vincent Kemme

Contribution to the e-book ‘Bioethics 2025 – status questionis’ published by Dr Dr. José María Simón Castellví, past-president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), Barcelona, March 2025.

Vincent Kemme

It is an honour for me to contribute to this important book on the ‘state of research’ in bioethics in the Year of Hope, 2025. I do so as a biologist, with a background in secondary education, a degree in biology from the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands) and a somewhat remarkable career both in the field of my faith and that of my work. In this article, I would like to share that career with you, to draw lessons from it for the way in which we think, speak and hopefully also act in bioethics from the perspective of faith.

Biology

What leads someone to study biology? In my case, that was simply the fascination with the phenomenon of biological life. Growth, adaptation; reproduction; the ability to adequately respond app environmental stimuli, degrees of intelligence that you can increasingly observe in the animal kingdom, species diversity, the workings of plants, animals and the human body: so many things to marvel at and then want to understand better. Life is beautiful, fascinating, awakens our wonder. And with these insights, I saw myself as a secondary school teacher in the Netherlands: enthusing young people, as some excellent biology teachers had done with me. 

Faith

By the time I made this life decision, I had left my faith and the Church behind me. I did not yet realise that I was living in one of the most secularised countries in Europe, where church life would go through a serious crisis, after the Second Vatican Council. Everything was in doubt, and the priests of my youth, still the new songs in the national language, could not captivate me enough to get up in time to attend Mass from the age of 16 on Sundays. I was never an atheist: I called myself “practicing agnostic” and was not at all concerned with questions of faith and church. I was not against it, but neither was I for it. I simply did not know. 

Until a classmate whom I continued to meet during my studies told me about the “charismatic movement,” a movement of prayer groups throughout the world, created immediately following the Second Vatican Council, in response – it is believed – to Pope John XXIII’s prayer for a “New Pentecost. I let my friend have his way, but I did not follow him: I had more peers who did belong to one or another ‘cult’: I myself did not seek that. But the conversations with my school friend did often concern religion. One day we spoke about ‘how we saw God’. I don’t remember what I said, but I vividly remember that at a certain point my friend asked me how I thought God saw me. That would cause a total turnaround in my thinking. However, for that to happen, God would have to exist, possess intelligence (have an idea about me) and have time to think about one of the then six billion people on Earth! I was not at all convinced of the first and second; I absolutely could not imagine the third.

Finally, I did go with him once, to a ‘catholic-charismatic’ eucharistic celebration in the parish of my youth. The priest suggested than I would come three times and then make a decision, knowing that I had not seen the inside of a church for seven years. I thought that was a reasonable proposal. After having ‘survived’ the first two services (the way of singing and praying was very different from what I remembered from the past), I decided to take an evening out on the eve of the third time to see where I stood in terms of philosophy of life. Was I ‘left’, or ‘right’, ‘green’ (which was on the rise in those days), Christian? Catholic? Protestant (the Netherlands is a very Protestant country)? I didn’t know.

That evening, I drew an isosceles triangle on a sheet of paper, with God, the world and ‘me’ in the three corners, to organise my thoughts. I reflected on the relationship between the world and God and found, as a biologist, that it was reasonable, plausible, to suspect a creative intelligence, or something of that nature, behind biological reality. There is so much ‘organisation’ in nature, so much ‘order’, ‘intelligence’, ‘purpose’ and ‘beauty’ that I could see myself calling myself a ‘Christian’, or at least ‘religious’. I saw no problem with a possible Christian identity in terms of the relationship between the world and myself. I grew up in a Catholic environment where the emphasis was very much on solidarity, the second commandment, and also on caring for the environment, but hardly on the vertical dimension of faith, the personal bond with God. I had no problem with that social dimension of the Christian faith, nor with caring for the environment.

The relationship with God

But then it had to be about my relationship with God. I couldn’t think of or write anything sensible about it. In the end I decided to do what those ‘charismatics’ often do: in their prayers, individually or in their prayer groups, just open the Bible anywhere and give God the chance to speak, to communicate something, a word that He wants to say to that person or group at that moment. I took a school edition of the New Testament that I had kept from my bookcase and opened it at random, with the thought: ‘If you do exist…’. And I read ‘It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute’, a passage from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 21, verses 13-15. I could not help but feel personally addressed. I was writing out a kind of testimony of faith or justification, but could not get it right, and then ‘Someone’ tells you that you should not even try to prepare it because that ‘Someone’ has ‘a wisdom in speaking’, where ‘my wisdom’ had proven to fall short. It was as if ‘Someone’ had been looking over my shoulder, knew exactly what I was thinking, saw me fail in my attempt to justify my possible belief, and then offered ‘His wisdom in speaking’ instead. For a moment I thought: isn’t this just a coincidence? Or am I imagining things? That evening I heard no voice from heaven, felt no warms around my heart or other outwardly perceptible manifestations, but I did read this text, which provided a ready-made answer to what I had been contemplating that evening. In the end, I decided that it was more reasonable to believe that God had indeed spoken to me than the opposite. But that had enormous consequences! Imagine, the God of heaven and earth comes to visit you, with something personal to share? It would be overwhelming, wouldn’t it? Later, a brother of mine gave me the Confessions of St Augustine as a gift. In part 8, I read the story of Augustine’s conversion in a garden in Milan. He had opened a copy of the Epistle to the Romans at a time in his life when he was dealing with major existential questions, and read something that made him decide to live his life as a Christian from then on and to have himself baptised. Of course I don’t want to compare myself to this great church father, but I did think: I am in good company!

Biology, faith, ethics

During my years at university, two students from the traditionally very Calvinist province of Zeeland (not New Zealand, but ‘old Zealand’ in the Netherlands) who studied biology in order to prove that Darwin was wrong and that the theory of evolution was flawed. Only a literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis was acceptable to them, as that was, after all, ‘the Word of God’. Between lectures, this naturally provided plenty of material for discussion with the predominantly non-believing students, who only believed in modern science. So the question of the debate between science and faith, more precisely ‘evolution and creation’, came to my attention. I had to gain clarity on this again, if only for myself.

Another theme was human sexuality. We were in the twilight of the sexual revolution that had taken our country by storm in the sixties. Sex outside of marriage had become an accepted reality. The use of contraceptives was self-evident: after all, you didn’t want to conceive a child if you had sexual intercourse with another person. That did not, of course, apply to those who preferred sexual relations with someone of the same sex: no child would come from that. Because sexuality, ‘thanks to’ contraception, was no longer necessarily linked to fertility, sexual intercourse was also no longer necessarily something that had to take place between persons of different biological sexes. Experiencing sex had become an end in itself. Having children was perhaps something for later, but waiting to have sex until you were ready to have children, whether married or not, had become absurd. Personally, I was also dragged into this way of thinking and acting, so I did not deal with sexuality in a very “Catholic” way in my first relationships with girls.

But now I had ‘discovered’ that God really does exist and it was as if a light had been switched on in my mind! Intuitively, I saw that my sexual behaviour was not compatible with God, with Christ. In a long conversation with the aforementioned priest, I came to that conclusion and decided to live in abstinence from then on, until my marriage to my girlfriend at the time. I received Gods forgiveness in confession and started a new life. I married her several years later, now forty years ago, and we had six children and, for now, five grandchildren.

Teaching biology

But in this liberal climate, how was I going to teach biology at schools, even Catholic schools, which left the contraception lessons to the biologists and considered it absolutely necessary to prevent teenage pregnancies? I was spared that. In France I had become acquainted with the Emmanuel Community, a community for lay people, priests and consecrated sisters and brothers, recognised by the Church, which in my experience formed the ideal synthesis between ‘charismatic renewal’ and ‘Catholic tradition’. Thanks to a major sponsor, I was able to help establish this community in the Netherlands and organise numerous apostolic activities, including weekends for young people on subjects such as love and sexuality, and weekends for married couples on their calling to be fruitful in love, biologically and in many other areas.

In the Netherlands I taught for some time at a Catholic private school, and in Brussels at the European Schools. In the Belgian capital I had also studied theology, philosophy and bioethics, at the ‘Institut d’Etudes Théologique’, in order to feed my thinking in those areas, to further understand the reasonableness of faith, and also the reasonableness of certain ethical positions of the Church.

Biofides

Eventually, after having moved to Belgium, I decided to found the ‘Biofides’ apostolate, a personal think tank for biology and faith and for bioethical issues. It started with attending the Evolution and Creation conference, in the Darwin Year of 2009, organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture. I was then invited to do radio broadcasts for Radio Maria Netherlands (and later also in Belgium). And I was invited by a French-speaking doctor from Brussels to join the board of the Belgian Medical Association Saint-Luke. This association could use some ‘reorientation’ when it came to medical ethics. Until last year, I served this association, including as editor-in-chief of the trilingual magazine Acta Medica Catholica.

When this Brussels doctor and chairman, Prof. Dr. Bernard Ars, one of the authors in this book, was elected president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), he asked me to support him in that position as his assistant, so that I could suddenly enter into discussions with doctors from all continents about the major issues surrounding faith and medicine: ethical issues, but also spirituality and intellectual formation. It was there that I also had the pleasure of getting to know José María Simón Castellví and was invited to speak in various European capitals, not in the least Rome. With Dr Ars, I organised a Consecration for doctors to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (2019) and a Conference on Transhumanism (2022), both in Rome. Due to personal circumstances, I had to stop these activities in 2014. However, it is an honour for me to be able to report on them here in this writing and to thank God for these privilages.

Bioethics in the Year of Hope, 2025

What can we take from all of this in our reflection on bioethics in 2015, the Year of Hope?

First of all, I would like to emphasise how much faith is much more than personal devotion or belonging to a particular religious culture. Faith is a gift from God that reveals Himself to us to the extent that we are willing to open our hearts and minds to His presence, His self-revelation in our lives. Certainly, our intellect can already lead us to the conclusion that God exists and is the One who is behind observable reality. But our minds can be clouded by misconceptions, limitations and deformation of our intellect. We can overcome this through study, but in prayer, the grace of faith can ignite a light in our minds that enables us to see the greater coherence. Faith is therefore not only a personal conviction, but also a light that illuminates our path, individually and in community. It is the fruit of an encounter with the living God. It is a unique source of light that illuminates all aspects of human existence. It also offers a foundation for hope and direction in life, especially in times of darkness and uncertainty.

Secondly, I wish to emphasise the great importance of a clear vision of the dialogue between faith and reason. Faith and science are not opposites, but complementary paths that together can lead to a deeper understanding of the truth about our existence. Faith stimulates a critical attitude about science and it’s limitations, grant us and wonder about creation, which can stimulate and enrich scientific research. Science, in turn, can protect us from misconceptions in our understanding of God, his self-revelation, his Word.

Thirdly, I feel it is important to refer to the reasonableness of Christian morality in general and Catholic medical ethics in particular. Christian morality is not just a collection of rules, but an answer to the love of God and a path to true human fulfilment. It is rooted in human dignity and the self-revelation of God. The moral standards taught by the Church are not only based on divine revelation but also on reason and the moral law of nature, which enables us to distinguish good from evil. This means that the Church’s moral guidelines can also be understood logically and rationally. Catholic medical ethics offers a coherent and consistent approach to moral issues in healthcare, and is based on a deep respect for life and human dignity. The conscience of the healthcare provider plays a central role in this: it is the inner voice that helps him recognise and follow moral truths. Care providers should form their conscience through prayer, reflection, critical thinking and study of the moral teachings of the Church. This process helps them to make well-considered and ethically responsible decisions in complex medical situations.

Finally, I would like to draw attention to the witness that Catholic physicians  and nurses can bear in the places where they work and provide care. Through his testimony, he can contribute to a new evangelisation, not only in the transmission of faith, but also in the concrete experience of that faith through acts of love and care. Caregivers can be an extension of the love of Christ in the world. Caring for the sick and the suffering is an essential part of the Christian calling. In addition to his outstanding professional skills, his faith and compassion make him a reflection of God. The testimony of carers is therefore a way of putting the message of the gospel into practice.

Conclusion

Bioethics in the Year of Hope is a more than urgent topic. Unfortunately, we too often view bioethics in the light, or rather ‘the darkness’, of the many violations against Christian morality and human dignity that characterise our post-Christian era. Ultimately, this is the bitter fruit of a Western world that has largely abandoned God and developed its own ethics that inevitably fail when it comes to the importance of the whole person, body, soul and spirit, and all of humanity. But through personal faith, experienced as a personal bond with God through prayer and the sacraments in the community of the Church, we can be hopeful and contribute to a new ‘awakening’ of christian values in healthcare. What is needed for this is an unconditional ‘yes’ to what God has in store for us, like Mary’s ‘yes’ to the angel. Through that “fiat”, God’s Spirit can become active in us, making us ‘charismatic’ christians, enlightening our minds, introducing us to the truth, filling us with love and compassion, and making us true witnesses of God’s love. Every healthcare professional is called not only to be a believer but also an apostle, and to contribute to the mission that Christ gave to all baptised: to be a proclaimer of the gospel of life, especially in the periphery of human existence, as a truly Good Samaritan.

Vincent Kemme

Vincent Kemme is a retired biology teacher from the Netherlands, who did additional studies in theology, philosophy and bioethics. He is the founder of the Biofides apostolate for biology, faith and ethics. He is married, father of six children and grandfather of five grandchildren. He lives in Belgium with his wife Ine, who is an occupational therapist. 

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Bioethics 2025: a comprehensive, global, current, retrospective and prospective approach to human behavior in medicine and other life sciences.

Presentation of the volume

Dr. José María Simón Castellví

Bioethics is interdisciplinary, and is at the intersection of multiple fields of knowledge, including medicine, biology, philosophy, sociology, psychology and theology. It also involves economics (e.g., resource distribution), journalism (communication), etc. Its objective is to examine the ethical implications of scientific and technological advances by reflecting on human conduct and the inherent dignity of each person. In this presentation, I will give some notes on the complexity and relevance of bioethics, its most basic foundations, its impact on critical decisions and its role in the search for the common good; without losing sight of the reality that evil accompanies us almost always.

Bioethics plays a crucial role in the way we understand and manage human life in the context of medical and scientific advances. Studying human behavior from an interdisciplinary perspective allows us to value the intrinsic greatness of each person and to face ethical dilemmas with a critical and compassionate eye.

Through the study and practice of bioethics we can contribute to a future in which scientific advances are used for good, always recognizing the valuable life of each human being, each second of life, and the necessary respect for the dignity that we all deserve. In these lines I have presented an introductory overview of bioethics, highlighting the importance of approaching this discipline with a committed and conscious view of the complexity of the human condition, and the imperative to resist the tendency to evil, always guided by the desire to do good.

The authors who have contributed to this book, from different languages, disciplines and specialties, cover the entire bioethical spectrum. I know them all and appreciate them a lot. It is true that most of them are doctors, but also humanists. I believed that with the contribution of these renowned professionals we would have an exact x-ray of how the discipline of bioethics stands today, in this jubilee year of 2025, in the world. And also where the challenges and problems come from, and how we can face the future with confidence despite the difficulties.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ve6xbaoAn-YteOqFpauHyf9NNJ7CM6kp/view

If you would like the book in EPUB, pls, ask to simoncastellvi@gmail.com

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Farewell to Catholic doctors

Posted on 18/01/2025 by Vincent Kemme
Dr. Paul Deschepper and Vincent Kemme

On 16 November, Biofides said goodbye, in person, to a long-standing commitment to the world of Catholic Medical Associations, in Belgium and worldwide. From the beginning of Biofides, as a Dutch biologist, I was an advisory board member of the Belgian Medical Association Saint-Luke. The aim was to help doctors to answer the great questions that they face if they want to harmonize their professional practice with their faith, yes even more, to be inspired by it to a greater quality of their work, a ‘healthy’ ethics that is not only ‘Catholic’ but also ‘reasonable’, and an even greater love, like that of the Good Samaritan from the gospel, or the love of Jesus, of God himself.

What did Biofides contribute?

  • In recent years I have been editor-in-chief of the (multilingual) magazine of the association ‘Acta Medica Catholica,’ which included in-depth articles that were intended to help achieve this goal, texts always at the interface of faith and (medical) science, ethics and spirituality. In addition, I designed and maintained the website cathmed.be
  • Because of my Dutch citizenship, I was also in close contact with the Network of Catholic Healthcare Professionals in the Netherlands and there was a fruitful exchange at the European level (feamc.eu).
  • Finally, I followed the then president of the Belgian association on his steps towards Rome, as his assistant-advisor, when he became president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (fiamc.org), based in the Vatican. There I organized a few medical conferences with him and was invited more than once to give a conference myself. I also revised and maintained the website for this organization.

But everything comes to an end and for personal reasons I had to say goodbye to both the World Federation and the Belgian Catholic Doctors’ Association and the role of editor-in-chief of Acta Medica Catholica in 2024.

Encouraging signs

Encouraging signs were, at this farewell:

  • The current presidency in Belgium, is held by a Flemish ophthalmologist from Mechelen, which has given a new dynamic to the association;
  • The arrival of younger Catholic doctors and medical students, through his efforts, so that the future of the association is also guaranteed;
  • The young French-speaking theologian, affiliated with the ‘Univerité Catholique de Louvin’ who took over the editorship from me;
  • The well-attended Belgian congress that recently took place on November 16 in the Irish College in the Damien Center in Leuven.

In the December issue of Acta Medica Catholica there is an extensive report of that congress, and a ‘laudatio’ was also published, which was pronounced for me by the honorary president of the association on the occasion of my farewell. The new editor-in-chief also had only very praising words for his predecessor. Both words are shown below.

Thankful

It only remains for me to express gratitude, to God and to all those involved, for the approximately 15 years that I have been able to invest, as a Catholic biologist, on behalf of Biofides, in the encouragement of Catholic doctors in the Low Countries and far beyond, to shape their medical profession from their faith, and to bring their medical practice into line with a well-formed conscience.

In the meantime, Biofides continues:

  • once every two weeks at Radio Maria Nederland (on Fridays),
  • Answers to questions I am asked
  • through this website
  • and what Providence has in store for Biofides.

Vincent Kemme

Links

  • www.cathmed.be
  • nkzn.medische-ethiek.nl
  • www.feamc.eu
  • www.fiamc.org
  • www.radiomaria.nl
  • www.biofides.org
A word from the new editor-in-chief, Thomas Remy
Laudation by honorary president Dr. Paul Deschepper
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Controversial Statements in “Etica Teologica Della Vita”

Posted on 25/04/2024 by Vincent Kemme

Last year, Biofides collaborated on the publication of an article in the American Catholic medical journal ‘The Linacre Quarterly“. It was prompted by a book published by the Pontifical Academy for Life, “Etica Teologica Della Vita” (Theological Ethics of Life), published in 2022, which questioned Catholic teaching on human sexuality and fertility. The Australian Catholic Doctors’ Association took the initiative to formulate a response. In our role as advisers to the World Federation of Catholic Doctors’ Societies (FIAMC), we were allowed to play a role in the creation of this text. Here is a summary of the article.

The teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality, contraception and the treatment of infertility are well established and clearly explained in many Church documents, including Humanae vitae and Familiaris consortio.

In 2022, a book was published in Italian which reported on a seminar organised by an Academy of the Catholic Church about the ethics of life. Titled the Theological Ethics of Life (abbreviated ‘ETV’ in Italian), the conclusion of chapter VII contains statements about contraception and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) which, though somewhat difficult to interpret, appear to be controversial with regard to accepted Church teaching on these subjects.

This paper presents a detailed analysis by a group of Australian Catholic doctors and ethicists of an English translation of paragraphs 172 and 173 of ETV and concludes that they contain statements which deviate from and contradict accepted Catholic teaching on contraception and ART.

The authors also claim that a thorough up-to-date knowledge and understanding of suitable current alternatives to contraception and ART (eg in-vitro fertilisation, IVF) which are safe, effective, readily accessible and consistent with Catholic ethics appears to be lacking in paragraphs 172 and 173 of ETV.

The authors suggest a better understanding of currently available methods to assist with fertility care, aided by input from Catholic medical experts working in the areas of Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs) and Restorative Reproductive Medicine (RRM) would better inform ongoing debates about contraception and ART within the Church and be of service to the Faithful who should be encouraged to pursue these alternatives which are both effective and consistent with Church teaching on human sexuality and morals.

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March for Life – Brussels 2024

Posted on 23/04/2024 by Vincent Kemme

I had the honour to speak on Sunday 21 April this year, at the start of the March for Life 2024 in Brussels. I am a former biology teacher from the Netherlands and have taught, among other things, here in Brussels at the European Schools and in Flemish  education. During my studies in the Netherlands, I discovered that ‘God exists’. I didn’t really know that until I was 23. That’s why later, here in Brussels, I also studied theology, philosophy and bioethics, to understand, as a biologist, how biology and religion are related and why, for example, abortion is not a good idea. Fifteen years ago I started ‘Biofides’, an apostolate for biology and faith. There I answer the big questions about life, including the bioethical questions we all face.  

Vincent Kemme

Let’s be clear: biologically, life doesn’t just begin at the moment of birth, or when the fetus can survive outside the womb. Also, life doesn’t start the  moment the heart starts beating. Nor does human life begin only at the moment of implantation of the embryo in the uterine wall. You all know that human life begins, biologically speaking, at fertilization, when an egg is fertilized by a sperm cell. 

So pregnancy doesn’t come out of the blue! You know that! I am the father of six children in my wife, who is taking part in the ‘Marche des Mères’ in Banneux today, and I know very well where pregnancy comes from! You too? This means that if we want to talk about abortion, we really need to talk about sexuality and fertility and about the  ideal that every human embryo should be the fruit of a loving, lasting relationship that we traditionally call ‘marriage’. If we were responsible about sexuality  and fertility, there would be no abortion issue! Shouldn’t we therefore give all our attention to ‘responsible parenting’, in order to combat the scourge of induced abortion? Is abortion not rather a symptom of a human and social tragedy that characterizes our time? 

So let’s fight the ailment by looking at the cause! As far as I am concerned, it lies in the 1960s, the time of the sexual revolution, which in turn is caused, in my view, by the acceptance of contraception as a means of birth control. Sexual experience is separated from procreation, and sexuality thus becomes an end in itself. Today, we don’t even know what our sexual orientation is or our sex (or ‘gender’). The confusion is great!  But contraception sometimes fails, or is even abortifacient, because the method, or its use, is not flawless. And then the need for abortion arises. The unwanted fetus will be removed. People even think they have a “right” to eliminate begotten human life!

We are dealing with a strong materialistic view of life. Since that sexual revolution, the Giver of life has almost completely disappeared from view. Life, whether it is sexuality or the human embryo, is not a gift from God but a material thing that can be manipulated to our own liking. There is no place for the ‘dignity’ of life in a materialistic worldview. Life is a ‘thing’ that you can do whatever you want. We no longer live in a ‘culture of life’ and believe that death, through abortion or euthanasia, is a justified solution to our problems. A materialistic culture thus becomes a ‘culture of death’. 

We therefore live in a culture in which God and the gift of life must be rediscovered, and with it the dignity of human life, and of all life, including that of the unborn child. If you can see life as a gift from God, it will be easier for you to treat it with respect. I do not think that we can achieve this primarily by convincing the legislators and the political world, even though we have to work on that. After all, politics and legislation are a repercussion, a fruit of the prevailing culture. We must gradually change the culture, first of all by our example. Let’s make the world a better place and start with ourselves. Let us also love our “ideological enemies”: this is what the Gospel teaches. So we are not going to throw stones at abortionists or politicians, and even less at women who have chosen to have an abortion. Let’s help and be close to women who experience a problematic pregnancy, with a lot of love and understanding. Let us continue to stand up for our beliefs, our convictions, preferably with good arguments, but above all with a lot of love and understanding for our dissenting interlocutor.   

Are we going to be able to change our current culture in the short term? No, let’s be realistic. It took Christianity three centuries to change the culture of the Romans. So we’re going to have to be patient with our contemporary culture. But we don’t sit back and relax. Let’s continue our march for life! Let’s go! 

Vincent Kemme

Posted in Beginning of Human Life, Bioethics, Church & Society, General Info | Leave a comment

Medicine: Restorative or Transformative?

Posted on 23/02/2024 by Vincent Kemme

In 2022, in Rome, we had the privilege of co-organizing the congress “Medicine: Restorative or Transformative?”.

The congress addressed various themes related to transhumanism, the tendency to want to “create man according to our own imagination”, in defiance of God’s creative plan and human nature as it has been given to us.

Many of the lectures of this congress have already been published in English in the book “Medicine: Restorative or Transformative?”, published by Kugler, Amsterdam.

There is now aldo a French edition to which we would like to draw your attention:

“Réparer ou transformer ?
Enjeux philosophiques et théologiques d’une question médicale”,

under the supervision of Bernard Ars and Dominique Lambert

Published by the Presses universitaires de Namur”.

Click here to order your copy.

Continue reading →
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Enhancing Catholic School Identity

Posted on 28/11/2023 by Vincent Kemme
Dr. Peter McGregor

How can a Catholic school – in a postmodern culture – enhance its identity? This is the subject of the ‘Enhancing Catholic School Identity Project’, also referred to as the ‘Leuven Project’. It is a vision for Flemish Catholic Education that aims to respond to the cultural and religious changes taking place in a pluralistic and secularised society. In this new environment, the ideal Catholic school should be – according to the ‘Leuven Project’ – a “recontextualising” school.

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Questioning Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

Posted on 25/09/2023 by Vincent Kemme

Steven Koonin is one of America’s most distinguished scientists, with decades of experience, including a stint as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. In this wide-ranging discussion, based in part on his 2021 book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin gives a more refined look at the science behind the climate issue than the media typically offers, guiding us through the evidence and its implications. As Koonin explains in this interview, he was “shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed” and that the “overwhelming evidence” of catastrophic implications of anthropogenic global warming wasn’t so overwhelming after all. For further information:

https://www.hoover.org/publications/u…

Posted in Integral Ecology | Tagged | Leave a comment

Keys to Bioethics

Posted on 12/11/2022 by Vincent Kemme

In 2022, a Keys to Bioethics – A Manual of Bioethics for Youth App, created and launched earlier, has been published as an e-book in 4 languages (Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese). French version is in the process of being published.

The Manual of Bioethics aims at objectively introducing children and young people to the significant issues of Bioethics, which arise in each of us when faced with scientific and technological progress, leaving us sometime disoriented. Adhering to the principles of science and human reason, it aims at helping to give simple answers starting from precise and rigorous technical information, to which the Christian faith adds meaning.

“With this  Manual we wish to offer young people around the world a practical and up-to-date tool to answer some of the questions that clutter their minds when faced with the great challenges generated by scientific and technological progress. These are straightforward, simple yet comprehensive answers that can help young people grasp the truth about the beauty and uniqueness of every human life,” declares Card. Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

Continue reading →
Posted in Beginning of Human Life, Bioethics, Blog @en, Ending of Human Life, Healthcare & Faith | Leave a comment

The beauty of the female body

Posted on 14/09/2022 by Vincent Kemme

MATERCARE CONFERENCE, SEPT 14th, Rome

Some thoughts on beauty in biology and medecine

Vincent Kemme, founder-president of Biofides, assisting the presidency of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC)

Thank you Prof. Chazan, for inviting me to speak at this MaterCare conference on ‘Womanhood of Mothers’. Who am I to speak about such a delicate topic that relates to human sexuality and procreation, a field of so much confusion in our days. As a teacher in biology, I was supposed to inform young people about the working of our reproductive system, but also how to avoid pregnancy: through contraceptive means. Today, young people in school are taught to question their ‘sexual orientation’ and even their ‘gender. Since the widespread introduction of hormonal contraception, a separation between sexuality and fertility has been installed, not only by physical and ‘medical’ means, but – even worse – in the minds of young men and women, who – when they desire a child – first have to stop using ‘the pill’. And who are the family doctors and gynecologists who dear to resist to this contraceptive culture, helping couples to live their marital life in a loving and  responsible manner? All this is rather ‘technical’ and raises ethical questions, that will not be my topic today. I will introduce beauty as a rational argument in order to come to a ‘healthy’ understanding of the human, male and female, body. I speak to you as a husband, father and grandfather, and as one of the translators of “the theology of the body” in dutch, my native language. 

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End of life issues in the Low Countries

Posted on 17/03/2022 by Vincent Kemme

On the 9th of October 2021, Vincent Kemme, founder of the Institute ‘Biofides’ for biology and faith, was invited to give a talk on ‘End of Life issues in the Low Countries, at the occasion of the National Meeting of the Catholic Medical Association in Portugal, helt in the Catholic Faculty of Medicine in Lisbon. Here follows a written account of his presentation.

Lisbon, 9 October 2021

Introduction

It is a privilege and an honour for me to speak to you, today, at this National Day for Catholic Physicians in Portugal, at the Catholic Faculty for Medicine in Lisbon. Allow me to introduce myself to you briefly, before touching upon the topic you asked me to speak about during this conference: Euthanasia in the Netherlands and Belgium. 

I am a biologist from the Netherlands, trained in the higher secondary education for young people, preparing for university studies in medicine and other disciplines, mostly the natural sciences. I taught in the Netherlands and in Belgium and at the European Schools in Brussels. During my academic studies at the university of Utrecht in the Netherlands, I had a life changing experience of Gods existence, due to the encounter with a new ecclesial movement, the so called ‘charismatic renewal’. Before, although raised in a catholic family, I had left the Church and had no religious practice, as a result of lack of understanding and interest. From that experience on, in 1980 to be exact, the relationship between faith and biology became a central theme in my intellectual journey. Science and faith, evolution and creation, but also the ethical questions around abortion, contraception, euthanasia, but also ecology, had become unavoidable due to the great changes in the culture in the sixties and later on. For that reason and out of pure curiosity, I pursued additional studies in theology, philosophy and bio-ethics.

Biofides Institute

In 2009, having moved to Belgium (more precisely: Flanders) with my wife and six children, I had to decide to put an end to my teaching career for ‘health reasons’. Part of the problem was the way I was supposed to teach human sexuality and procreation that even in catholic schools were supposed to be a course in contraception. But there were other reasons too. At that point, I decided to start my apostolate ‘Biofides’, in which I try to provide reasonable answers to any question a student might ask me once they found out that I was a catholic biology teacher.  

Only a few months later, a physician from Brussels, the president of the Catholic Medical Association of Belgium, Prof. Dr. Bernard Ars here present amongst us, invited me to joint the board of the bilingual medical association, in order to deepen, or even correct, the ‘mindset’ of the board, regarding bioethics and the teaching of the Church. Dr. Ars and I are working together now for more than a decade, today in his capacity as president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations with its office in the Vatican. And here I am, speaking to an audience of medical students and doctors in Lisbon. 

Biofides researches first of all the relationship between faith and science, philosophy being the playfield where both human intellectual endeavors meet and enter into a dialogue, without confusing theological and scientific argumentations, nor separating them as irreconcilable. A  proper metaphysical and ontological view of reality and proper understanding of epistemology are needed to bring harmony between faith and science(1). This leads to a philosophical anthropology, a vision of man, from which one can come to a reasonable understanding of morality and bio-ethics (2). Biofides addresses itself not only to the medical field, but also to the world of education, science, society as a whole, and the Church itself, where, unfortunately, a lot of confusion appears to exist. 

Euthanasia

The questions concerning ‘the end of life’ were certainly not the questions that interested me most. How can a biologist be interested in ending the phenomena that he studies: biological life? The origins of life, the human species within the context of biological life on earth and in the universe, its ontological statute, its procreation and embryological development, its intellectual, moral and spiritual faculties, its eternal destiny far beyond the realm of our earthly existence: those are the questions that had my interest. This fascination for biological, and therefore also human life, is what makes us wonder at what is clearly a mystery: something that can be known but also surpasses.  No biologist has a particular interest in death, although even death is a fascinating topic for the biologist. No physician decided to study medicine, in order to learn how to kill a patient that is entrusted to his care, although death is a reality for every doctor, something he has to have an answer to, although maybe not a medical answer. So the topic can not be avoided as humanity appears to take it upon itself to do the opposite of what one would expect a biological being to do: put an end to its life or having someone else, in a white coat, do so. In the past, such a person would be considered mentally ill. Today, he or she is respected for the way this person makes use of his or her autonomy. So I will share with you my thoughts, based on the reality of twenty years of legalized euthanasia in the Low Countries, The Netherlands and Belgium. I will do this in three parts: some facts about the actual situation, some socio-cultural considerations and some suggestions for a strategy for catholics in medicine. 

The Netherlands and Belgium

Is was in 2001 and 2002 respectively that in the Netherlands and Belgium laws allowing euthanasia, although under strict conditions, passed the democratic process and were adopted in the respective parliaments. Since then, the number of – officially registered – cases of euthanasia and medical assisted suicide (I will not make a distinction between the two, here) have only risen. In 2020, almost 7.000 cases have been registered in te Netherlands, a country with 17,4 million inhabitants. This was the result of an augmentation of 9,1% between 2019 and 2020 only, which does not promise much good for the numbers of 2021 that are at this point not yet available. On the total number of deaths in one year, the number of cases represents about 4,1 percent. 

In Belgium, a country of 11,5 million inhabitants, a small majority of which is Dutch speaking, a big minority in number is Frans speaking, the numbers of registered medically provided deaths was 2.656 in 2019 and 2.444 in 2020, which represents about 2,5 percent of all deaths per year. It is notable that 77 percent of these cases where registered in Flanders, the Dutch speaking region of Belgium, and only 23% in Brussels and Wallonia, the French speaking part of the country. This is, in my view, an indication for the cultural differences between the the two parts of the country, where the Flemish tend to be far more orientated to the north, the Netherlands, whereas Brussels an Wallonia are culturally far more influenced by the south: France. I will come back on these cultural differences and their impact on these numbers in what follows. 

According to a study of the British Medical Journal, about 50% of the cases of euthanasia or medically assisted suicide are committed illegally, so not registered, which would mean that up to 8 or 9 percent of the deaths in the Netherlands are medically provoked, and probably in comparable numbers in Flanders. This is completely in line with the public opinion, and the messaging in the main stream media, that medically assisted dying has become a perfectly acceptable way of ending ones life. Moreover, there is the slippery slope of always adding categories of people that can be euthanized legally: not only the somatically terminal patients, suffering in an ‘unbearable way and without medical perspective’, but also psychiatric patients, infants, and in the near future maybe also people that are ‘tired of life’, detainees, and some day, the handicapped… A new word has appeared in the Dutch media: ‘Euthanasiasm’(3) an amalgamation of euthanasia and enthusiasm, where even secularist public opinion seems to start asking questions about the desirability of the actual situation. But signals of a return to – in our view –  ‘moral normality’ in the near future are still lacking. The main legal battle today for physicians and all healthcare workers is: the right to conscientious objection. 

Some socio-cultural considerations

The major sociocultural change that we have witnessed is the dramatic religious decline since the sixties, especially in the Netherlands and – in its footsteps – Flanders. In the Netherlands, today, over 50% of the population says to have no religious affiliation of any sort, catholicism, protestantism, islam or judaism. This has lead to an extremely secularized society, characterized by materialism, relativism, subjectivism and pragmatism. Any religious affiliation is suspect of being ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘extremist’, especially since the appearance of ‘fundamentalistic islam’, accompanied by terrorism. As all ‘organized religions’ are simply ignored, distinctions between catholicism and (fundamentalist) islam are no longer made in the public discourse. 

The Netherlands has been dominated by a calvinistic, very divided protestantism (where Germany has been dominated by lutheranism), which has led to theological and moral subjectivism and relativism, lacking a unifying religious and moral authority as in catholicism. On top of that the secularization from the last five decades and the result is what we have now, despite a traditionally relatively strong position of the catholic christianity in the south-east of the country. In Belgium, a country strongly divided by the linguistic and therefore cultural problems between ‘Francophone’ en ‘Flemish’ Belgians, the influence of protestantism is far less. Flanders has always remained under the influence of catholicism (under the Spanish, Austrian and French role) and Francophone Belgium, strongly under the French influence. The secularizing forces come especially from the ‘free thinkers’, in the slipstream of the French revolution and freemasonry. Because of the linguistic and therefore cultural bonds between Flanders and the Netherlands, the impact of the very strong secularization in the Netherlands has been enormous, in the last decades. In the end, both countries have taken the lead in secularization and moral relativism in Europe, and most countries of Europe seem to follow their example, even Ireland and Poland. Portugal does not seem to be able to escape from this tendency.

Sexual revolution

An aspect of this pragmatic but in some cases immoral attitude is the massive refusal of the Church teaching on contraception, after the introduction of ‘the pill’. What is more materialistic and pragmatic than taking a pill in order to solve what is perceived as a physical problem, namely: fertility? In a materialistic worldview, moral objections are hard to think of – what is morality – even if it means the introduction of a culture of death, as John Paul II would call it later. As the pill, as well as other forms of hormonal contraception, is an act against life, against a life giving act of love, the twofold finality of spousal love, it is immoral even before being abortifacient in its double effect. This opens the door to abortion, as the human embryo does not have the dignity anymore that it has ontologically. On top of this: the failing of contraception in to many cases, methodologically or practically, the numbers of abortions will rise. And if death as a solution to our problems can be accepted in the beginning of human life, why not at the end? So it was just a matter of time and euthanasia would become acceptable. 

As through contraception procreation or fertility became separated from spousal love, sexual enjoyment became a goal in itself, without any other finality than personal and relational joy. This could not other than lead to the sexual revolution that we have known in the sixties and that is still dominating our culture. And when sex has no other goal than personal or relational intimate enjoyment, why then limiting it to one person, why still promising fidelity, why not with a person of the same sex? What is the importance of biological sex anyway? Let us change our ‘gender’ if we ‘feel’ that we are living in ‘the wrong body’. Introducing death as a solution to our problems, means the denial of basic biological understanding of our species and medical ethics in one stroke. The sexual revolution has destroyed, to a great extend, the ‘Imago Dei’: ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1) (4), and therefore – in a way – a ‘real presence’ of God, in the form of the married couple and the family, within society. The result is ‘a real absence’ – to a certain extend – of God in the culture, also called: secularism. Euthanasia is just a symptom of this cultural disease. 

Some strategies for catholics in medicine

Taking into account that the legalization of euthanasia, also in Portugal, seems to be unavoidable at this point(5). Many other countries prepare for legalization so it seems very difficult if not impossible, to ‘turn the tide’ in the near future. What can be our attitude towards this reality? The first thing is: ‘to get over it’, by accepting reality as it is. It is normal that we, as catholics, deplore this development, but it seems useless to me to remain embittered by the situation. Rather, we will have to become that ‘creative minority’ (A. J. Toynbee) (6), that is inventive in finding concrete solutions and make beneficial proposals for society, to offer alternative solutions in stead of a profoundly negative attitude, both in the working place as well as in society.  

Our creative presence in society should focus on three levels of human activity: faith, reason and practice.

Faith

Challenging situations are always an invitation, for a catholic, to deepen his faith. This means: renewing our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, through personal prayer, eucharistic adoration, and a deeply lived sacramental life. And this should never be done all alone, but in some kind of community. Therefore, Sunday Mass may not be enough and participation in a prayer group or faith community seems to me a prerequisite for spiritual growth and empowerment. Personal guidance by a priest or an experienced and trustworthy spiritual guide belongs to our basic needs for a strong en deeply rooted life in Christ,  ‘without Whom we can do nothing (Joh, 15,5). It is through prayer and life in Christ, that God Himself can act through us, by the creativeness of his Holy Spirit. It would be arrogant to think that we, human beings, could solve our problems only by ourselves. That would be a form of Pelagianism (7), as if we do not really need Gods grace. On the other hand, we can do a lot, if we do what God inspires us to do, guiding us by his Providence. As a willing instrument in Gods hand, we can ‘move mountains’. So let us not lose hope and never resign to what God wants from us. Let us be His true disciples. 

Another aspect of our faith life is compassion, charity that goes as far as loving our enemies. And in a post-modernistic society, as in the Low Countries, we have many ‘enemies’, in our families, neighbourhoods, and as colleagues: people who have embraced convictions and practices, or political views, that go directly against our religious and moral beliefs. Love them with your whole heart and distinguish between the person and his of her way of life. Hate the sin, but never the sinner. Discern the reasons why someone is not against euthanasia and be understanding, without judgement. And be patient with one another. People, ourselves included, need time to come to other conclusions. God is patient with us. Let’s be patient with our contemporaries.  

So as a catholic we are called to be a witness to what we believe in: the God of life and love. This means a supernatural love for the world we live in, our colleagues, family members and even our politicians! Therefore, we need Gods anointment, so be renewed in the grace of our confirmation: the gift of the Spirit that has beard so many fruits, the lasts decades, and in the history of the Church. The Holy Spirit, the most neglected person of the Holy Trinity, gives us the strength to remain faithful, the insight in what we believe and why, the love that we need for our neighbors, and the courage to go out, ‘come out of the closet’, ad bear witness of our faith in an attractive and convincing way for others. We are called to be apostles, also as a doctor. 

Reason

A second level of human activity concerns reason, our intellectual capacities. It is my experience, although living in a country where euthanasia has become legal for twenty years, that I still need to deepen my understanding about why this is immoral, why – for instance – ‘mercy killing’ is a false notion, or which arguments can be used in our dialogue with contemporaries who think (and act) otherwise. For instance: why limiting our argumentation to the immanent aspects of end of life question: the unbearable suffering, the so called ‘quality of life’, the dangers of ‘the slippery slope’. Why not also introducing the notion of transcendence in human nature, which means that if a human person would have an ’immortal soul’, euthanasia may have consequences in what is called ‘the afterlife’, not only for catholics who believe in the afterlife, but also for those who do not believe in anything that transcends human life ‘before death’. If immortality and the afterlife are real, atheists will also have an afterlife. The thousands of systematically documented testimonies of ‘Near Death Experiences’ over the last five decades seem to ‘proof’ that this is not only a reality of human existence, but that death comes also with an evaluation of the way we have lived our lives before death. These testimonies show that euthanasia is not ‘recommended’ (8). Is it morally acceptable that we limit our argumentation to the life before death, the immanent, as if the afterlife and the possibly timeless consequences for euthanasia do not exist? Do I need to be a priest or a theologian to make this point? Is my own catholicity, as a baptized christian and physician not enough, even though I will immediately admit that the afterlife is outside my competence as a physician? Is it not an argumentation, from reason rather than faith, that needs to be be considered? 

It is the knowledge of our faith and our understanding of its reasonability, that, in the end, will convince. We need to understand the basic theological en philosophical starting-points and our ethical principles, not only our medical specialty. At the basis of reasonable medical ethics is a human anthropology that is adequate for describing the whole human nature, of every single human being: a person, a composed of the material and the spiritual. And it goes without saying that we need te excel in medical expertise and skills. 

Practice

Practically speaking: catholic doctors in the Low Countries speak about ‘creative resistance’ when it comes to morally challenging situations. The appeal to conscientious objection seems to be the corner stone of their opposition to euthanasia and other moral reprehensible acts. This can and should be accompanied by refraining from any judgment of our colleagues and the power of the example: nothing less than sainthood. 

Love and truth go together, in christian behavior. No truth without love ‘for your enemy’. No love for you colleagues in disguising completely the truth. It is a daily exercise to balance the two. Also very important is the distinction between the person and his of her beliefs and practices as mentioned above. Never judge the person, only an opinion or practice. ‘Being right’, theologically or morally,  in you convictions, is easy; getting the other person to admit that you are right, ‘getting right’ if one can say so, is far more challenging. It requires a lot of prayer, love, discernment in how to speak or act in a particular situation, a lot of love and patience with the other, and maybe, we will fail. A christian doctor is like any christian ‘in the business of’ witnessing, not of convincing. We respect the God given freedom of the other person, even to believe the most immoral things. Our testimony is one of words and deeds: nothing worse than a catholic who’s speech is not confirmed by his actions and – especially – his reactions. A real christian is recognized by his reactions, not his actions. That’s what they call sainthood. Our convictions must ‘incarnate’ and become attitudes, also to be called virtues.  

In the case of a demand of euthanasia, the interpersonal relationship with the patient is key to an understanding of the ‘question behind the question’: fear for pain, loneliness, abandonment, etc. Catholic doctors in the Low Countries also warn for the danger of being instrumentalized by the patient, the familie, of even by the hospital. Our creative resistance can be hard. Let us not forget that baring witness in the New Testament is very often linked to the reality of martyrdom. It would be an illusion if we would think of witnessing only in terms of giving a good example. Witnessing comes with suffering, and in some cases, it may cost as much as your assignment. So let us be realistic, not naive, but also not afraid. In my case, as a biology teacher, my beliefs had great consequences, for even catholic schools wanted me to teach contraception.  In the end, I had to put and end to my career as a teacher. Today, I speak to you, physicians and students in medicine, at a Catholic Faculty of Medicine. Our ways are not always Gods ways. 

So my point is that if we want to change the culture and politics, we should begin with changing ourselves. Five decades of radical secularization, as we lived in The Netherlands and Belgium… It took christianity 300 years to christianize the Roma Empire. So we will have to strive, but also to be patient. Our children, an American priest said to me in Belgium, will reap the fruits of our striving. So please do not lose hope and don’t let the probable legalisation of euthanasia, if you can’t stop it, rob you of your joy: the joy you have in being a child of God and – hopefully,  – an excellent physician. 

Notes
(1) Dominique Lambert: Sciences et théologie – les figures d’un dialogue, Edition Lessius, 1999.
(2) Peter Kreeft: A History of Moral Thought – Modern Scholar Audiobook, 2003
(3) Dessaur, C.L, and C.I.C. Rutenfrans – Mag de dokter doden? Argumenten en documenten tegen het euthanasiasme [May the Doctor Kill? Arguments and Documents against Euthanasiasm]. Amsterdam: Querido, 1986. 
(4) Pope John Paul II, Michal Waldstein (translator):  Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Pauline Books & Media 2006
(5) “For a second time, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa of Portugal has rejected a bill that would have legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide in the country. Parliament is now unlikely to be able to override the President’s veto before elections of new Parliament members are held in late January of 2022. https://www.liveaction.org/news/president-portugal-rejects-euthanasia/. 
(6) “The phrase, which Benedict XVI has used for several years, comes from another English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). Toynbee’s thesis was that civilisations primarily collapsed because of internal decline rather than external assault. “Civilisations,” Toynbee wrote, “die from suicide, not by murder.” https://catholicexchange.com/benedict’s-creative-minority/
(7) Pelagianism is a heterodox Christian theological position that holds that the original sin did not taint human nature and that humans have the free will to achieve human perfection without divine grace.
(8) Dr. Patrick Theillier: Expériences de mort imminente – Un signe du ciel qui nous ouvre à la vie invisible – Edition Artège, 2015

Recommended literature: 

Euthanasia: Searching for the full story. Experiences and Insights of Belgian Doctors and Nurses

Timothy Devos

The book offers a new critical analysis of euthanasia and is written by health care professionals in Belgium – where euthanasia has been legal for 20 years. Provides a real-world multidisciplinary approach with contributions of hematologists, psychiatrists, palliative care doctors, nurses and an ethicist. It presents lessons learned from the application of laws in countries that have legalized euthanasia. 

Vincent Kemme

Former biology teacher from the Netherlands, living in Belgium, founder of the Biofides institute for biology and faith, editor in chief of Acta Medica Catholica, bulletin of the Catholic Medical Association of Belgium, Assistant to the President of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC, Rome). Husband, father and grandfather.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-56795-8

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