Suffering and Bioethics
Medicine exists to alleviate suffering, and suffering influences our ethical reasoning about what we should and should not do.
Joy & Suffering: My Life With ALS by Martin D’Amore
Before dying of ALS in 2015, my friend Marty D’Amore wrote a spiritual autobiography, Joy & Suffering: My Life With ALS. I wrote the Foreword to his book.
Christian Wisdom and the Care of the Sick
The Christian approach to suffering and death contains a somewhat obvious paradox that nonetheless balances ethical reflection on suffering. Christianity recognizes that both suffering and death are evil and to be avoided. But it also recognizes that each might be accepted under certain circumstances to bring about some good. The difficulty is to understand which circumstances and for what good. Working through this difficulty is a very personal process, as one can see when reading the saints as they reflect on suffering and on preparing for death.