Welcome to the site of the Catholic Bishops' Joint Bioethics Committee

The Catholic Bishops' Bioethics Committee is a unique body, established by the three Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The members of the Committee have a range of expertise in the field of bioethics and offer advice to the Bishops about the science and ethics of current developments.

"The progress of science and technology in the area of bioethics is transformed into a threat when human beings lose the sense of their own limitations and, in practice, claim to replace God the Creator".

Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, May 2006

"For Christian witness to be effective, especially in these delicate and controversial areas, it is important that special efforts be made to explain properly the reasons for the Church’s position, stressing that it is not a case of imposing on non-believers a vision based on faith, but of interpreting and defending the values rooted in the very nature of the human person".

Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, no 51