ABOUT THE EVENT
As Illinois enters a new era in end-of-life care, profound questions about life, death, human dignity, conscience, suffering, and medical responsibility are moving from the legislature into our hospitals, faith communities, and courts. Catholic Theological Union invites you to a timely interreligious and interdisciplinary conversation bringing Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim perspectives into dialogue with medicine, law, ethics, and pastoral practice. In the spirit of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s consistent ethic of life and commitment to interreligious dialogue, the panel will explore where these traditions converge, where they differ, and what they can contribute to the difficult decisions faced by patients, families, physicians, and communities at the end of life. Against the backdrop of Illinois’s new End-of-Life Options law and the religious-liberty challenges now being brought in the courts, this conversation asks a question deeper than any single piece of legislation: How do we honor human dignity and accompany one another faithfully at the end of life?
Dr. Ranana Dine, Assistant Professor of Catholic-Jewish Studies, Crown-Ryan Chair in Jewish Studies, and Director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at CTU;
Nicole Shirilla, MD, MA, MEd is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Bioethics and in the Division of Palliative Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Shirilla received her BA and MEd from the University of Notre Dame. She earned her MD from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She completed Family Medicine Residency and Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at The University of California Irvine. She earned a Certification in Health Care Ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center and completed a Clinical Bioethics Fellowship and MA in Bioethics at The Ohio State University. Dr. Shirilla is clinically active in both Palliative Medicine and Clinical Bioethics. She is the director for the OSU Clinical Bioethics Fellowship and is also active in graduate and undergraduate bioethics education.
Dr. Aasim I. Padela, MD, MSc, FACEP, Professor and Vice Chair for Research and Scholarship in the Department of Emergency Medicine and Director of the RAPID-EM Fellowship Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Padela is a physician-scholar whose work focuses on the intersection of bioethics, medicine, public health, religion, and Islamic theology, including end-of-life care.
PROGRAM AGENDA:
3:00 PM – Mass celebrated by Fr. Enzo Del Brocco, CP, President of CTU
3:45 PM – Introduction by Fr. Jim Halstead, OSA, sharing his personal experience and perspective
4:00 PM – Panel conversation of Dr. Ranana Dine, Dr. Nicole Shirilla, and Dr. Aasim Padela
Q&A with the audience
