facultynews

Priest talks on fertility enhancement technology

Religious Studies Department faculty Father Daniel Kroger, OFM, was a presenter and a panelist at a conference on religion and reproductive health technologies.

Held on July 30 at the Asian Institute of Management Conference Center, the gathering focused on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and its moral significance. It was sponsored by the Women’s Feature Service Philippines.

With an audience of religious ethicists, women’s rights advocates, and medical doctors involved in fertility enhancement technologies, Fr. Kroger delivered his paper titled IVF for Fertility Enhancement Viewed from a Catholic Moral Perspective. Medical doctors, a lawyer and ethicists from the Muslim and Christian traditions gave their presentations and formed the panel for the discussions.

Pagadut joins 1st CBAP annual confab

Dr. Natividad Pagadut of the Religious Education Department attended the first annual convention of the Catholic Bible Association of the Philippines (CBAP) held on July 20-22 at the Phinma Training Center, Tagaytay City. This year’s theme is “Charism, Leadership, Community.” Two major papers were presented, one by Father Francis Maloney, SDB, president of the Catholic Bible Association of America, and the other by Father Pablo David, a bible scholar who specialized on the Book of Daniel. After the talks, challenges were posed to the present Christian communities for reflection.

To date, CBAP has 48 registered members, most of whom are priests and religious, including two lay women members.


International journal publishes Magno article on environment and governance

Political Science Department Chair Dr. Francisco Magno’s article titled, Forest Devolution and Social Capital: State-Civil Society Relations in the Philippines was published in the April issue of Environmental History.

In his paper, Magno argues that the rules governing forest utilization and tenure emerged through competitive struggles as well as cooperative encounters involving the state and civil society. Since the 1970s, the evolution of policy measures to transfer forest authority to local communities has contributed to the growth of reform advocates inside the government.

Environmental History is an international journal dedicated to exploring the history of human interaction with the natural world. The American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society, in association with Duke University Press, co-publishes the journal. It is listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).