As most of you all already know, Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ passed away last night.
First Things has a notice, as well as links to the many articles Cardinal Dulles wrote for the magazine.
More at America.
A comprehensive Dulles page, sponsored by the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club.
This morning, the CDF released an instruction on biomedical research, Dignitatis Personae. The USCCB has a page on the document, including the text, a summary, and a FAQ. It’s all very helpful.
Back to America, Fr. Drew Christiansen, SJ, has another helpful, positive summary of the document.
He ends his article, which had begun with references to CS Lewis, with this concern:

The instruction’s subject matter is technical. It offers a sustained and serious treatment of vital problems. Just as the sciences have their own languages, so moral theology needs technical terminology and patterns of argument. The problems the congregation addresses are pressing; but the obstacles to communication are great. The language of natural law has limited power today to turn back the tide of technological transgression we face. Pastorally, the church needs to find an improved rhetoric to engage the postmodern mind, and in its apologetics it must experiment with varied genres of persuasion to affect the fluid imaginations of the Digital Age. Who will be the C. S. Lewis for our day, defending human nature and celebrating the Christian vision of life for the 21st century?

I agree, but I also think that the obstacle to “defending human nature” in the wake of abuses of science comes not only from inadequate rhetoric but what seems to me to be an almost absolute closedness to the question on the “other” side.  Questions of human dignity and uniqueness are often consigned to the dustbin of  “moralisms” which are subjective and must not be imposed, references to which must necessarily be evidence of the questioners mythical, non-scientific worldview.
Another excellent note from Yuval Levin at NRO:

One of the great ironies of the stem cell debates of the last few years has been that some of the most serious attention to scientific detail and reality has come from Catholic circles, while some of the most wide-eyed messianic faith-healing talk has come from liberal political (and sometimes even scientific) circles. There is another example of the former today, with a new Vatican document about reproductive technologies and bioethics. I’m not a Catholic and am in no position to speak to the theological components of the document, and I don’t agree with all of its conclusions (on IVF, for instance) but its treatment of the latest scientific developments and of the related ethical questions is exceptionally good, and its attitude—very pro-science and very clear about ethical boundaries and the reasons for them, with arguments that reach well beyond Catholic theology—is very impressive.