Elio Sgreccia

Elio Sgreccia (; 6 June 1928 – 5 June 2019) was an Italian bioethicist and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, director of the international medical ethics journal Medicina e Morale, president of the Ut Vitam Habeant Foundation and the Donum Vitae Association of the Diocese of Rome, and honorary president of the International Federation of Bioethics Centers and Institutes of Personalist Inspiration (FIBIP).

Early life Sgreccia was the youngest of six children born to an agricultural family. He was born and raised in Nidastore, a small town in the Comune of Arcevia in the Province of Ancona in the Marche region located in central-eastern Italy. His entry into the seminary was delayed by the start of World War II, so he continued to assist his family in the fields and attended a vocational school in the meantime.

Church life Sgreccia entered the seminary in Fano and was ordained a priest on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul: 29 June 1952. Sgreccia first served as a spiritual minister to the youth of Catholic Action. He completed university degrees in classical letters, philosophy, and theology, and worked as a professor, vice rector, and rector at Pius XI Pontifical Regional Seminary in Fano until 1972, when he became vicar general of the Diocese of Fossombrone.

On 5 November 1992, Pope John Paul II appointed him Titular Bishop of Zama Minor and secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, where he served until his resignation in April 1996. He was consecrated as a bishop on 6 January 1993 by Pope John Paul II. In one of his last appointments, Pope John Paul II named him president of the Pontifical Academy for Life on 3 January 2005, a post he held until his age-induced resignation was accepted on 17 June 2008.

Bioethics From 1974 to 1984 Sgreccia served as a spiritual minister at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, where he was involved with the spiritual formation of health care professionals and the investigation of biomedical moral issues. Sgreccia became a member of the Committee for Guidelines on Genetic Counseling and Testing of Italy's Ministry of Health in 2001. In 2003, he founded the International Federation of Bioethics Centers and Institutions of Personalist Inspiration (Federazione Internazionale dei centri ed istituti di Bioetica di Ispirazione Personalista, FIBIP). It was first published by Vita e Pensiero in 1986 with the title Bioetica. Manuale per medici e biologi (Bioethics: A manual for physicians and biologists). Its first edition under the definitive title Manuale di bioetica was published in two volumes in 1988. The fourth Italian edition was published in 2007. It has been reprinted numerous times and has been published in whole or in part in roughly ten different languages, including Spanish, French, and Russian. The first complete English edition of Volume I was published by The National Catholic Bioethics Center in 2012 as Personalist Bioethics: Foundations and Applications.

On 25 March 2011, Sgreccia received an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, whose faculty of bioethics was the first in higher education to offer a complete degree program in bioethics: bachelor, licentiate (master) and doctorate.

Death Sgreccia died on 5 June 2019 in his home in Rome, aged 90.

Publications Sgreccia published some 400 works in Italian and various other languages. Some of his works include: Sgreccia, Elio. Personalist Bioethics: Foundations and Applications. Philadelphia: The National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2012. . Original Italian: Manuale di bioetica. Fondamenti ed etica biomedica. 4th ed. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2007. . Sgreccia, Elio and Jean Laffitte. The Human Embryo before Implantation: Scientific Aspects and Bioethical Considerations. Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2009. . Sgreccia, Elio and M. Luisa Di Pietro. Procreazione assistita e fecondazione artificiale tra scienza, bioetica e diritto. Brescia: La Scuola, 1999. Sgreccia, Elio. La bioetica nel quotidiano. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2006. . Sgreccia, Elio, Angelo Serra, and M. Luisa Di Pietro. Nuova genetica ed embriopoiesi umana. Prospettive della scienza e riflessioni etiche. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1990. . Sgreccia, Elio and M. Luisa Di Pietro. La trasmissione della vita nell'insegnamento di Giovanni Paolo II. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1989. .