Religious life and rites
Christian ethics and morality
Christian ethics helps us understand what is good and right in human life. The Church teaches that every person is created in the image of God and is called to love God and neighbor; the moral life grows from conscience, in the light of faith and from responsible choices.
Topics
Topic I · What is Christian ethics?
What are Christian ethics?
Human dignity and the moral law
The foundation of Christian ethics is the belief that every person is created in the image of God and possesses a spiritual and immortal soul, reason, and free will. The human person’s end is God, and he or she is called, in body and soul, to eternal beatitude. Therefore moral questions are never merely juridical or technical – they touch the very being of the human person. The moral law, that is, the natural law, is written by the Creator in the human heart and enables reason to distinguish good from evil. The New Law, that is, the Law of the Gospel, brings this to perfection: its summary is the command to love God above all things and one’s neighbor as oneself.
Conscience and responsibility
Conscience is the inner core of a person, a call to do good and avoid evil. The Church invites every person to cultivate their conscience—this means using reason, the light of faith, prayer, and the teaching of the Church in shaping one’s choices. Bishop Philippe Jourdan emphasizes that moral decisions are never merely a private matter: “Proposed laws are not merely legal questions that do not concern us in real everyday life. They concern our reality and everyday life.” Responsible living means the ability to ask: what is truly good—for me, for my loved ones, and for the whole society?
Topic II · Life, old age and death
Life, old age and death
Old age and the meaning of life
Bishop Philippe Jourdan writes about thanatophilia—a pressing longing for death that is growing in today’s society: we are constantly confronted with news that speaks to us about death and anxiety. In this atmosphere, it is not surprising that the end of life seems to many like a release from a sorrowful fate. At the same time, the bishop emphasizes that our healthcare system cannot give us what it most needs—the desire to live. The will to live and the meaning of life come from other people, families, and communities. Pope John Paul II wrote that old age is a call to interdependence and solidarity that unites generations: every person needs others and is enriched by the gifts and charisms of all.
Assisted suicide or palliative care?
The question of the end of life has been a topic of public debate in Europe and Estonia. A doctor with long-term experience with terminally ill patients said to Bishop Jourdan: “One can never say that people do not want to live. They do want to live, but they do not want to live the kind of life that is offered to them.” The Church, together with the Estonian Council of Churches, emphasizes that it is important to uphold and protect human life until its natural end and to develop palliative care that helps people live the final stage of their lives in the best possible conditions. Instead of rushing to legalize assisted suicide, an impartial working group should be convened and a political decision made to invest in humane end-of-life care.
Theme III · The Human Person, Identity and Family
The Human Person, Identity and Family
Who is my father? Who is my mother?
Questions concerning gender neutrality, marriage, and parentage point to the nature and identity of the human person and the family and are not merely legal issues. Bishop Philippe Jourdan writes: “Who is the human person? What is marriage? What is the family? What does it mean to be a father, to be a mother? These are fundamental questions that require broad public discussion.” Our society tends to idolize the law as the creator of a new human being and the giver of life, forgetting that legal formality is only a shell—the body itself is what is real. The danger is that changing the concept of the family will further deepen inequality: on one side will always be children born into their family from a mother and a father, and on the other those whose parentage and family structure are decided by someone else.
Pope Francis and the teaching of the Church
In 2020, the documentary “Francesco” sparked global controversy, as if Pope Francis had changed the Church’s teaching regarding same-sex relationships. Bishop Jourdan explains what actually happened: in the documentary, two separate answers given to different questions at different times were taken out of context and combined. In reality, Pope Francis affirmed that the Church adopts the attitude of the Lord Jesus, who offers His boundless love to every person without exception—while not changing the Church’s teaching on marriage. This case illustrates how important it is to thoroughly examine sources before forming an opinion on moral issues.
Theme IV · Contemporary moral issues
Contemporary moral issues
The morality of using COVID-19 vaccines
During the pandemic, the question arose whether it is ethical to use COVID-19 vaccines that were developed using cell lines derived from aborted human fetuses. According to a statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved by Pope Francis, it is “morally permissible to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in the research and production process.” According to the Congregation, receiving the vaccine in itself does not imply cooperation with abortion or its approval—provided that no alternative vaccines are available to the individual. At the same time, the Church emphasizes that pharmaceutical companies should make efforts to use ethically irreproachable materials in vaccine production.
Responsible decisions in the service of the common good
Jesuit Carlo Casalone notes that vaccines have undergone tremendous development over two centuries, which, together with other medicines, has helped increase the average human life expectancy by more than 30 years. Accepting vaccines is not only a private matter but also concerns the common good – how to protect the most vulnerable in society. Responsible decisions in the light of ethics mean both following one’s personal conscience and recognizing social responsibility. Most important is that no one – whether a believer or not – makes decisions on major moral questions based only on media headlines, but instead examines sources and forms their opinion rationally and in prayer.
Ethical and human-centered artificial intelligence
Bishop Philippe Jourdan writes that the discussion on artificial intelligence is not about fear of machines taking over, but about much more concrete questions: how can artificial intelligence make the world better, serve the common good, and not increase inequality? A declaration prepared by the Pontifical Academy for Life, also signed by senior leaders of Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, sets out six principles: transparency, inclusion, responsibility, impartiality, reliability, and security and privacy. These principles are not derived from technology, but from the human person who uses it. Artificial intelligence is never neutral – it always depends on the choices and decisions of the person in whose hands it is.