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674 BOOK REVIEWS teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas presented therein, should heed Journet's wise words: "Christ's offering is charged with too many riches not to be complex" (96). Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland TRENT POMPLUN Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners, second edition. Edited by EDWARDJ. FURTON, PETER}. CATALDO, AND ALBERTS. MORACZEWSKI, 0.P. Foreword by EDMUND PELLEGRINO. Philadelphia: The National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2009. Pp. xx + 466. $59.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-935372-54-0. The first edition of this manual appeared in 2001. The second edition contains twenty-nine chapters, most of them either substantially reworked from the first edition, or new articles based upon developments within the field of bioethics. The work is not meant to be read from cover to cover but to be used like an encyclopedia by doctors, nurses, and members of ethics committees working in hospitals who face often complex medical dilemmas. Circumstances and medical issues change a great deal from person to person in medical situations. It is not always easy to understand practically the burdens and benefits of an array of medical and personal issues. For this reason, what may be a settled procedure or a practical conclusion about an end-of-life issue may not be true for all end-of-life issues, even though the cluster of the same guiding principles may be utilized in both cases. And so, this book has numerous practical guidelines, drawn from the teaching Church, for the practitioner to learn. The manual is divided into six parts: Foundational Principles, Ethics Committees, Beginning-of-Life Issues, End-of-Life Issues, Selected Clinical Issues, and Institutional Issues. This reviewer could see the invisible hand of St. Thomas Aquinas guiding many solutions to problems and the visible hand of Albert S. Morazcewski, 0.P. (since deceased) who was the founder of The National Catholic Bioethics Center in 1973. Of special note are the finely honed summaries of each article done by the editors. The articles taken as a whole have a profound unity to them and a passion for the truth guides them all even when there is disagreement in an area not yet clarified by the Magisterium. The various studies are followed by an appendix of the major bioethical documents of the papal Magisterium, that is, the teaching of particular popes, and the Congregation for the Doctrine and Faith. It also includes writings from a consultative body to the Holy See, the Pontifical Academy for Life, and finally three documents of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Lesser BOOK REVIEWS 675 documents of the Magisterium are referenced in the various studies made by the thirty-three authors. Some bioethical issues are left out, but interested readers can easily find much about these other areas by searching the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, published by the same institute. I am referring to medical and ethical issues surrounding such problems as conjoined twins, adoption ofembryos, craniotomy and the like. Each study presents a robust command of the material, evidenced by the numerous endnotes citing materials even with a entries as late as 2008. Of particular interest is the debate between solid theologians and medical personnel such as Peter Cataldo and Patrick Yeung, Jr., Erica Laetham, and Joseph Tham, L.C. They tackle the question of taking one pill of plan B (levonorgestrel) after rape. Cataldo argues that the pill does not produce an abortifacient effect, based upon the scientific studies ofNicanor Austriaco, O.P., while the others think that the scientific studies of other bioethologists indicate the pill might inhibit a conception from implantation, and therefore, kill the conceptus or embryo. If further scientific research clearly indicates that the use of one pill after rape is in fact an abortifacient, then the bishops of Connecticut would be shown to have been in error by permitting such an action in the Catholic hospitals under their jurisdiction. In any case, Cataldo has done quite an admirable task in explaining moral certitude and applying it to his point of view. For all practical purposes, all the articles deserve special recognition for their insight and wisdom. Several that struck this reviewer in particular were the following...

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