Matters of Life and Death

Human beings are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, yet the complicated world we live in constantly interferes with our natural understanding. And so we live in a time of widely divergent opinions about right and wrong, life and death, sexuality and sex, pro-life and pro-choice, prolonging life and shortening life. What we need now more than ever is a moral compass by which to steer. In Matters of Life and Death, Gerard Verschuuren means to provide the contemporary reader with just such a moral compass by unflinchingly examining the pressing issues of today—such as abortion, genetic manipulation, infertility treatments, gender change, and aid in dying. His approach speaks to the Catholic ideal of “formation of conscience,” which is sorely needed to orient ourselves in our fractured political landscape. This book does not so much introduce a new method of navigation as reacquaint the reader with the precepts the Church has long provided as a means to hone our faculties of moral judgment. Paperback, 201 pages.