Initial Reactions to the Pope's March 20, 2004, Allocution.

Germain Kopaczynski, Initial Reactions to the Pope's March 20, 2004, Allocution, 4 NAT'L CATH. BIOETHICS Q. 473 (2004).

The pope's words, while well-received by most of the conference's participants, were not music to everyone's ears. Indeed, John Paul II's critics soon lined up, both Catholics and non-Catholics. Of the non-Catholics weighing in on the matter, Arthur Caplan, as usual, was outraged. The pope's reasoning was seriously flawed, and the pontiff was guilty of undermining patients' rights and going against well-established clinical practice in the United States.

Many regard what the pope said as upsetting the status quo of American health care. While that may be true, that ought not to be taken necessarily as a criticism. If the pope's allocution is regarded as a course correction for the Catholic tradition and if the...