Edmund Pellegrino, MD, MACP passed away peacefully in his sleep June 13, 2013. He was a fabulous gentleman, astute clinician and very capable administrator. I knew him when he was the Chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics during the Bush (43) years as he often attended the Westchester Institute’s Scholar’s Forums. He published almost 600 papers and book chapters and was an unashamed and unabashed Catholic in the Public Square.  Many consider him the “Father of Bioethics”. UNESCO Chair Fellow Fr. Joseph Tham, MD, PhD, LC posted this recollection of Dr. Pellegrino.

My memories are much simpler – a humble, good and devout man who did his best to preach the Gospel with the deeds of his life and the words of his manuscripts. He was almost always  in a largely hostile and unfriendly environment.  He stood for the good – was an early proponent of the concept of human dignity in bioethics, fought euthanasia, fought embryo-destructive stem cell research and fought against human cloning years before the Church published a sentence on the topic.  He applied Faith and Reason to these topics independently while the Church caught up.

While unknown to many, he was an opponent of the Culture of Death long before Blessed John Paul II coined the term. I pray for the repose of his soul and hope that our Lord greets him with joy and mercy. He served the Church and the Culture with vigor to the very end.

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