On 6-8 July, 2016, Professor Salvino Leone and Brother José María Bermejo de Frutos, representing the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God (General Commission on Bioethics), attended the 1^st LATIN AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL BIOETHICS CONGRESS and the 7^th HUMANISATION AND BIOETHICS CONGRESS in Curitiba (Brazil).

This Congress was organised by the CATHOLIC PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY OF PARANÁ (PUCPR), which belongs to the Marist Group in Brazil, and had been scheduled to coincide with 7^th Humanisation and Bioethics Congress. The Marist Group runs several universities and hospitals in Brazil. About 30,000 students study on the Curitiba University campus, which offers more than 50 different academic courses, at all three degree levels (first, postgraduate, and Ph.D. degrees). The University has very good Human Health Sciences (Medicine, Biomedicine…), Humanities, and Bioethics Departments.

The main purpose of staging the Congress was to launch the ‘Latin American Digital Bioethics Journal’ (Revista Digital Latinoamericana de Bioética’), as a project shared by another 16 Universities, and the Order of Saint John of God.

The Spanish congregants represented several institutions, and included Francisco Javier de la Torre, Head of the Chair of Bioethics at Comillas University, Carmen Massé, Secretary of the Chair of Bioethics at Comillas, Rafael Junquera and Antonio Fuertes of the Fundación Europea para el Estudio y la Reflexión Ética (Funderética), while José María Bermejo de Frutos represented the Order. All of them delivered papers to the Congress (see programme).

During the Congress two working meetings were held between the representatives of the Journal promoting institutions. In brief:

We were able to become personally acquainted with one another and at the same time take up once again the commitments entered into by signing the cooperation agreement.

We acquainted the other universities and institutions with our own Institution (the Hospitaller Order).

We introduced our General Commission on Bioethics and its work dynamic.

We held an interesting dialogue and presented a number of proposals regarding the Journal: topics for future editions, the organisation of the work, etc.

It provided an opportunity to present the Journal to the public.

The bases were laid to set up a real reflection working group on Latin American Bioethics.

We spoke about the possibility of holding a future meeting of the Journal promoters in Spain, coordinated by Comillas University.

It was an opportunity for all of us to exchange and enrich our ideas for working together and on each institution’s Bioethics formation and education programmes.

The papers delivered at the Congress provide interesting material on which our Commission could reflect and work. They will be published on the Congress website for later use.

The Curitiba Congress has been useful in that it has enabled us to gather Ideas and initiatives for the organisation of our Congress in Madrid.

Lastly, we acknowledge that this Congress has also helped us b y giving us a platform for disseminate, both publicly and privately, our own Order’s Congress in Madrid in 2017. This was one item that attracted many comments, formally and informally (plenary sessions, informal talks, chatting…)

Prof. Salvino Leone and

Bro. José María Bermejo