Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

pre-natal, have always had a particular claim on the charity of
Christians. With regard to these most helpless and abandoned of
human beings in our day, who are given no status whatsoever by
much of our society, one cannot but be reminded of a similar situation
in another age and the response of Christians at that
time. The early Christians were both famous and infamous for
their giving shelter to Roman infants who were left exposed.
This odd behavior marked them as different in that society.
While Christians should not seek to be “different” for its own
sake, the commitment to rescue and raise the children “exposed”
in our society is, as it was then, an odd behavior that will worthily
mark those who offer such hospitality. 43
Bibliography
THE MORALITY OF ADOPTING FROZEN EMBRYOS 139
JOHN BERKMAN
Amundsen, Darrel (1996), Medicine, Society, and Faith in the
Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996, pp. 50-69.
Ashley, Benedict, O.P., and Albert Moraczewski, O.P. (2001),
“Cloning, Aquinas, and the Embryonic Person,” National
Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Summer 2001, pp. 189-201.
Boswell, John (1988), The Kindness of Strangers: The
Abandonment of Children in Western Europe From Late
Antiquity to the Renaissance. New York: Pantheon Books,
1988.
Caulfield, Brian (1998), “‘Souls on Ice’: With Frozen Embryo
Technology, Life’s Sanctity is Lost,” The National Catholic
Register, January 4 - 10, 1998, pp. 1, 15.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1987), Instruction on
Respect for Human Life in its origin and on the Dignity of
Procreation, February 22, 1987: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 80
(1988), 70-102.
43 I am grateful for the comments of W Barbieri, C Crysdale, D Ferris, N
Ford, J Grabowski, J Komonchak, F Moloney, J Utz, and H Watt on previous
drafts of this paper. Thanks also to the CUA Grant-in-Aid program for financial
support of my research.