A faculty member from the School of Medicine traveled to the Vatican to share his perspectives on the future of cancer research with Pope John Paul II, who will use the information to help craft the Catholic Church's doctrines concerning medicine and technology.
Dr. Richard Satava, professor of surgery/gastroenterologic surgery, was among the 200 physicians and scientists invited to the Vatican to discuss global issues and meet with the Pope as part of the Vatican's Jubilee 2000 festivities.
Over the past 700 years, the Catholic Church has hosted Jubilees, or Holy Years, in Rome and the Vatican to mark significant years in the church's history. This year's festivities celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
For generations the church has used Jubilee years as opportunities for reflection and reconciliation. This year's celebration included 60 "mini-conferences" focusing on a variety of issues, among them global health, education for all people, human dignity, the environment, and the ethical and moral imperatives of medical research.
The conference Satava attended was titled "Mankind and Cancer" and addressed a number of issues, such as state-of-the-art cures and the ethical and moral questions raised by the explosion of new technologies.
In particular, the Yale professor was asked about how he thought technology would influence cancer and finding a cure for cancer.
"I addressed issues about the next generation technology which is in the research laboratories now and will be available over the coming 20-50 years, like nano-technology (creating structure and materials molecule by molecule), tissue engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, and bioinformatics," says Satava, who is involved in Yale's telemedicine and advanced medical technology research programs.
At the completion of the conference the physicians and scientists traveled to the Vatican for a three-hour audience with Pope John Paul II. The Pope listened to the summaries and then responded with a statement explaining what issues he felt were important to address. It was as a result of one of these meetings, for instance, that the Pope made the recent Official Declaration against human cloning.
"It was very profound -- the issues being addressed, the seriousness with which it was being taken by the church, and their willingness to look at state-of-the-art in science and try to reconcile fundamental religious beliefs with rapid sociological and technological developments on a global basis," Satava says.
"It's interesting that a religious leader such as the Pope would reach out to seek counsel on such a global scale in order not to promote his religion but to make sure his particular religion is in consonance with what is happening in the real world today," he adds.
-- By Jacqueline Weaver
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