In Memoriam: Richard A. McCormick 1922-2000

The Reverend Richard A. McCormick, S.J., the distinguished moral theologian who came to the Kennedy Institute of Ethics in 1972 as a visiting scholar and then became the Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute from 1973 to 1986, died 12 February 2000, from pneumonia. He had suffered two strokes within the past year that had left him partially paralyzed.

Since leaving the Institute, Father McCormick had been the John A. O'Brien Professor of Christian Ethics at Notre Dame. He was recognized internationally as a leading scholar dealing with controversial issues in biomedical ethics and an influential proponent of a proportionalist approach to the problems of applied ethics. He was brought to the Kennedy Institute in its early years by its founder, André Hellegers, giving the Institute what many would consider the most influential voice in Catholic biomedical ethics. He served as interim director of the Institute between 1979 and 1980 in the year following Hellegers's death.

His publications include the series "Notes on Moral Theology," which appeared regularly in Theological Studies from 1965 to 1984; How Brave a New World: Dilemmas in Bioethics; and Doing Evil to Achieve Good: Moral Choice in Conflict Situations, which he co-edited with his friend and sometime adversary, Paul Ramsey, a prominent Protestant medical ethicist. His journal writing covered such topics as "To Save or Let Die," the controversial and widely debated JAMA article from 1974, as well as publications on physician-assisted suicide, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, gene therapy, and patients' rights. His essay, "Who or What is the Preembryo?," appeared as the lead article in the first issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. He was one of the pioneering faculty members who helped to set the judicious academic tone that we have always tried to preserve at the Kennedy Institute. He was a wonderful colleague, scholar, and friend.

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