PERTH, WA: July 12, 1990
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In business! THE L.J. GOODY BIOETHICS CENTRE OPENS ITS DOORS
The L.J. Goody Bioethics Centre has opened the doors of its new permanent home and it looks like being a very busy place, according to its director. "Without undue modesty there is nothing comparable anywhere else in Australia to what the archdiocese has provided here," said Missionary of the Sacred Heart Father Walter Black who has been released to the archdiocese for five years. He said that the Jugan St Glendalough site, formerly St Bernadette's school, was the end of a 'pilgrim journey' that started in 1985 in offices in St John of God Hospital Subiaco under Jesuit Father Bill Uren who was the Centre's first director, the Bioethics Committee having been established in 1983. After the transfer of Fr Uren to Melbourne the offices were housed at the Catholic Education Centre. In the Glendalough conversion there is a large public lecture hall in a separate building and in the main centre a large library to house resources, in moral theology and bioethics, a 16seat boardroom that will be available to health groups such as the Catholic Doctors Association, a large secretarial office and work room as well as a study for those wanting to use the centre's
resources a director's office and residential flat and a kitchen area.
Father Black, who for the past two years has operated out of his Lynwood presbytery bedroom said that his first tasks would be to establish the library and then to offer week-long and shorter courses for teachers and others on Catholic moral teaching. He said there was already a constant demand for information and personal counselling in moral problems associated with health care, for singles and couples referred by priests, doctors and others. He said that there had been an enormous response both inside and outside the Catholic Church from those wanting to make use of the centre's resources. There had always been an interest in moral questions associated with health care and bioethics had been a part of moral theology, Fr Black said. However, changes in health care due to new technology, such as reproduction, had raised moral problems that had not been thought of before.
The L.J. Goody Bioethics Centre had its unofficial opening this week when Archbishop Goody (centre) was taken on a guided tour by the director Father Walter Black MSC (right) and Monsignor McCrann and Mrs Faye Colum who supervised the renovations to the former St Bernadeffe's School.
With the increased secularisation of society the age old questions of abortion, euthanasia and family planning had become more urgent and people are looking for guidance, light and the clear teaching of the Church, he said.
Freedom from a 'living hell' OR HOW THIS MAN BEAT THE BOOZE • Page 6