Bioethics and Christian Theology in Brazil

Abstract

A Christian theology is important to bioethics in Brazil not only because Brazil is a country of strong Christian traditions, but also because of its theological method and because of many practices in their Christian communities. In fact, the interaction within practice and theory is a big point of its methodology. A heritage of a long history of colonialism in South America comes to our times as enormous social inequalities. In such a context, the silent cry of poor people is heard as a question of coherence to the Christian faith and to the neighbor love. Through a constant dialog with human sciences, the method of theology, known as liberation theology, seeks the roots of social inequalities and the alternatives to a movement of spiritual and social liberation. In touch with the modern bioethics, this theology has strongly contributed to understand all the questions of bioethics in the frame of social structures and systems. On the other hand, many actual practices of the Catholic Church in Brazil with popular impact, like its annual Fraternity Campaign, develop social themes and problems that are also big concerns of bioethics. In this article we try to expose some aspects of this dialog, where theology has a well considered contribution to Brazilian bioethics, at the same time his religious discourse is open to interact with a lay discourse.