DIOCESE OF GARY
OFFICE OF PRO-LIFE ACTIVITIES
"The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being"
Pope St. John Paul II
Ask Fr. Tad!
The Struggle of Infertility
When a couple has unimpeded marital relations for a year without conceiving a child, they are often considered to be facing issues of infertility. The phenomenon is not uncommon, with one in six couples reportedly infertile. Married couples will often be encouraged by family, friends and the mass media to turn to IVF as a solution. As spouses and friends become more aware of their situation and face uncertainty about the future, they may wonder about a range of important questions:
How do we speak to individuals struggling with infertility who may be wondering whether they should try IVF?
What is the difference between assisting and replacing the marital act?
What are NaProTechnology and FEMM and what options and approaches do they offer to infertile couples?
What potential alternative therapies are there to help resolve underlying causes of infertility, and what related approaches that are ethically congruent with marital intimacy?
The Gift of Dying Well
End of Life Decision Making: Ethical Decision Making in Sickness and Compromised States
End of life medical decisions can be challenging. The availability of so many options and complex technologies can be daunting to families dealing with a sick family member. We may wonder:
— Is a ventilator required?
— What about morphine?
— Should I have a Living Will?
Even as we face the reality of end stage suffering, we encounter opportunities for change and transformation. Father Tad emphasizes how important it is to respect the dying process as a time of unanticipated graces with its opportunities for interpersonal healing and spiritual growth, not only for the ailing individual, but for all those around him or her.
Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. currently serves as Senior Ethicist at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. Fr. Tad is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes and speaks widely on bioethics and medical ethics. Since 2001, he has given several hundred presentations and invited lectures, and participated in debates and roundtables on contemporary bioethics throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
He has taught bioethics classes for seminarians at St. John's Seminary in Boston, Pope St. John XXIII Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts, Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, St. Bernard's School of Ministry and Theology in Rochester, New York, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and served as Professor of Bioethics at the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND.
As an undergraduate Fr. Tad earned degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and chemistry, and did laboratory research on hormonal regulation of the immune response. He later earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University, where he focused on cloning genes for neurotransmitter transporters which are expressed in the brain. He worked for several years as a molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Father Tad studied for 5 years in Rome at both the Gregorian University and the Lateran University, where he did advanced work in dogmatic theology and in bioethics, examining the question of delayed ensoulment of the human embryo.
He writes a monthly newspaper column on bioethics that is nationally syndicated to more than 30 diocesan newspapers in the U.S., and which has also been carried by newspapers in England, Poland and Australia.
He has testified before members of the Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia and Oregon State Legislatures during deliberations over stem cell research and cloning. In 2020, he was appointed to the National Institutes of Health Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board. He has done commentaries for numerous media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, CNN International, ABC World News Tonight, National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News, and the New York Times.