Dr. John M. Haas, Ph.D., S.T.L., M.Div. - Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary

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Dr.

John M. Haas, Ph.D., S.T.L., M.Div.

John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology

• Phone: 610-785-6500

• E-mail: jhaas@scs.edu

John M. Haas is the John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. He was the President of The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2019 and then served as Senior Fellow until January 2025. He received his Ph.D. in Moral Theology from The Catholic University of America in 1988 and his Licentiate in Moral (summa cum laude) from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 1975. He also studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Munich, Germany. Dr. Haas was also a professor at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary from 1989 until 1996 and Adjunct Professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and the Family, Washington, D.C. He was a consultant to both the Committee for Pro-Life Activities and the Health Care Subcommittee of the Doctrine Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as a Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and later as a member of the Academy’s Directive Council. In 2011, the Pope Benedict appointed him as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. In 2018 Pope Francis reappointed him to the Pontifical Academy for Life. He serves as a Censor Librorum of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. He has received two honorary doctorates (Immaculata University and Franciscan University). Dr. Haas is a Knight of Columbus and a knight of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George. He is also a member of the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta and serves as the Philadelphia area chairman. He was awarded the Cross of Commander “Pro Merito Melitensis” by the Order of Malta in 2016. In 2019 the Holy Father named him and his wife Martha a Knight and Dame of St. Gregory the Great. Dr. Haas and his wife Martha, who passed away in 2022, have nine children and 38 grandchildren.

Ph.D. The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., Cum Laude, 1988
S.T.L., The University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Summa cum Laude, 1975
M.Div., Nashotah Episcopal Theological Seminary, Wisconsin, 1971
B.A., Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania, 1966
Two years of study at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
One year of study at the University of Chicago Divinity School
One year of study at the University of Munich, Germany

Episcopal clergyman for the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, 1971 - 1977
Ass’t Professor of Moral Theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum, 1977-1979
Registered Foreign Agent for the National Bank of Mexico, President of the Banamex Cultural Foundation, Washington, D.C. 1978-1983
Consultant to the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration, 1983-1985
Treasurer and Professor of Moral Theology, Pontifical College Josephinum, 1983-89
Faculty Member of the Commission for Interprofessional Education and Practice at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1983-85
Adjunct Professor, Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies in Marriage and the Family, Washington, D.C., 1989-1993
John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, 1989-1996
President Emeritus and Senior Fellow, the National Catholic Bioethics Center
John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, 2019-present

The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and former Board Member
Founding Member and Board Member, American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.
Appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life by Pope Benedict XVI, 2006-2017
Appointed to the Directive Council of the Pontifical Academy for Life by Pope Benedict XVI, 2010-2017
Appointed to the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care to Healthcare Workers by Pope Benedict XVI, 2011-2017
Appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life by Pope Francis, 2018-2021
Consultor to the Committee for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002 – 2019
Consultor to the Health Care Sub-Committee of the Doctrine Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from its inception until 2019
Theological Advisor and Television Host, Producer and Host of the “St. Charles Forum” on EWTN
Member for Grant Reviews Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C., 1983
Founder and President International Institute for Culture, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Select Publications and Public Presentations:

“Reconciliation and Evangelization in the Thought of John Paul II,” Paper read at a conference on reconciliation theology sponsored by APRODEA, Lima, Peru, 1985.
“Reflections on the Vatican Instruction Donum Vitae.” Paper read at the symposium, “Reflections on the Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation,” sponsored by the Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, Oct. 4-6, 1987. Later published by Georgetown University Press.
“The Inseparability of the Two Meanings of the Marriage Act” in Reproductive Technologies, Marriage and the Church. Boston: The Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center, 1988.
Marriage and the Priesthood. New Rochelle: Scepter Press, 1989. Also published in Spanish, French, and German.
The Holy and the Good: The Relationship between Religion and Morality in the Thought of Rudolf Otto and Josef Pieper, Ph.D. dissertation, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1988.
“Christian Doctrine on Moral Conscience”. Response to paper presented by Father Servais Pinckaers, O.P. of the University of Fribourg at the Symposium: “Reason, Revelation, and Christian Ethics” sponsored by the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in cooperation with the School of Philosophy, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., March 19-21, 1990.
“The Secular Nature of the Lay Faithful”. Seminar for Seminarians: Christifideles Laici. The New England Theological Forum, Boston, April 17, 1990.
“Waging a Just War Justly“, Crisis, April, 1991.
“The Catholic Position on Abortion” The Linacre Quarterly, November 1993.
Crisis of Conscience, Crossroad Publishing, ed. and contributor, 1996. From seminar in Orvieto, Italy with Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, Servais Pinckaers, Ralph McInerny, Robert Spaemann, Ignacio Carrasco de Paulo, Carlo Cafarra, Wojciech Giertych, and John Haas.
“The Relationship of Nature and Grace in St. Thomas”, The Ever-Illuminating Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas by Ignatius Press, San Francisco, July, 1999.
“Building the Culture of Life Through the Family”, Is a Culture of Life Still Possible in the United States? (Proceedings from the 20^th Convention of Fellowship of Catholic Scholars 1997) by St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, IN 1999.
“Redeeming Culture, Of Pubs and Piety”, StAR, May/June 2003.
“Rethinking Metaphysics”, University of the Holy Cross, Rome, 27 February 2004.
“Redeeming Culture, Pope Benedict and the Liturgy”, StAR 5, No. 6, Nov./Dec. 2005.
“Prudence in St. Thomas Aquinas: Certitude in the Midst of Ambiguity”, Ambiguity in the Western Mind, Craig J. N. de Paulo, Ed., Peter Lang Publishers: New York, 2005. 101-116.
“Therapeutic Proportionality and Therapeutic Obstinacy in the Documents of the Magisterium”, Alongside the Incurably Sick and Dying Person: Ethical and Practical Aspects, Città del Vaticano, 2009, 143 – 157. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City, 25 – 27 February 2008.
“Science, Medicine, and Religion in and after the Holocaust”, Medicine After the Holocaust: From the Master Race to the Human Genome and Beyond by Palgrave MacMillian, New York, NY, 2010.
“Justice in Health Care”, Congress of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care for Health Care Workers, Rome, November 15, 2010
“Catholic Teaching regarding the Legitimacy of Neurological Criteria for Determining Death”, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Summer 2011, 279 – 299.
“Bien Común y Desafios de la Bioética Contemporánea”, FIBIP IX Congresso, Havana, Cuba, 17 de Mayo 2013.
“Medical Ethics in a Clinical Setting”, St. Mary’s Hospital, Seoul, Korea, 21 May 2014.
“Application of Moral Principles in a Clinical Setting”, St. Mary’s Hospital, Seoul, Korea, 22 May 2014.
“Algunos desafíos culturales actuales de la Bioética Personalista”, X Congreso de FIBIP,
“Personalista al servicio de la Dignidad del Hombre: Nuevos rumbos: de Aparecido a Evangelii Gaudium”. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 14 October 2015.
“The Decline of Human Rights in a Secularized Culture”, “The Decline of Human Rights in a Secularized Culture: Redefining the Pillars of the Western Identity”, The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Cadenabbia (Lake Como), Italy, November 6, 2016.
“Problems of Bioethics and Biolaw Raised by Legislation on Prior Instructions Regarding Care and Treatment”, Conference on Health Care of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, the Vatican, 16 November 2017.
“Moral Theological Analysis of Direct versus Indirect Abortion”, The Linacre Quarterly, 2017.
“Opportunistic Bilateral Salpingectomies and Catholic Teaching”, Bishops’ Workshop, The National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Knights of Columbus, Dallas, Texas, 4 February 2020.
“Health Care Merger Issues”, Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth National Meeting of Diocesan Attorneys, April 30-May 2, 2000.
“What is Man, O Lord? The Human Person in a Biotech Age”, Workshop for Bishops of US., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Philippines, Feb. 5-9, 2001.
“Human Dignity as Children of God”, paper delivered at “The Grandeur of Ordinary Life” International Congress, Holy Cross University, Rome, Jan. 8-11, 2002. Later published in the proceedings.
Speaker for the Linacre Centre’s conference, “Cooperation, Complicity and Conscience”, Queen’s College, Cambridge, England, July 24-26, 2003.
“Rethinking Metaphysics”, Philosophy conference of the Universita Santa Croce, Rome, February 2004.
“Humans as commodity?” “Wenn Menschen Waren Werden”, Paper delivered at a two-day Congress on biomedicine and bioethics hosted by Eichstaett University, Eichstaett, Germany, May 11-12, 2007.
Commencement Address, Christendom College, May 16, 2023.
“Addressing Proportionalism”, St. Francis de Sales Seminary, Milwaukee, April 3, 2023.
“The Reasonableness and Beauty of the Teaching of Humanae Vitae”, Conference of the International Chair in Bioethics Jerome Lejeuene, Rome, May 2023

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