astronomy

Marie-Jo Thiel

Marie-Jo Thiel is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Marie-Jo Thiel rather than just read about it. In short: Marie-Jo Thiel (born 7 May 1957, Etting) is a French theologian, medical doctor, and professor of ethics. She is a professor of moral theology, specialising in ethics and bioethics, at the University of Strasbourg.

Key takeaways

Marie-Jo Thiel belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Marie-Jo Thiel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Marie-Jo Thiel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Marie-Jo Thiel (born 7 May 1957, Etting) is a French theologian, medical doctor, and professor of ethics. She is a professor of moral theology, specialising in ethics and bioethics, at the University of Strasbourg. Her research focuses on topics such as ageing, death, medical ethics, and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. She is also the founder and former director of the European Centre for Studies and Research in Ethics and former president of the European Society for Catholic Theology.

Biography Thiel was born on 7 May 1957 in Etting, Moselle, France. She studied Medicine at the University of Strasbourg and became an intern at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nancy in 1980. She obtained her PhD in medicine in 1983 from Strasbourg, followed by a PhD in Catholic Theology from the University of Metz in 1989. Her second doctoral thesis was called "Au clair obscur de la vie : pour un statut de l'embryon humain" (In the chiaroscuro of life: Status of the human embryo). This was given très honorable avec félicitations by the jury. She then began teaching ethics and bioethics at Metz and Nancy; at Metz, she became a maître de conférence. While a lecturer, she finished a diploma in European Health Policies in 1993 at the Seminary in Nancy, followed by a Habilitation in Ethics and Moral Theology at University of Strasbourg in 1998. Her habilitation thesis was called "Atouts de l'éthique systématique" (Assets of Systematic Ethics), which would inform her academic focus moving forward.

Career Thiel joined the Faculty of Catholic Theology at Strasbourg in 1999, where she quickly established an interdisciplinary program in ethics. A master's degree in ethics was also started, with her serving as director. This research formed the basis for the European Centre for Studies and Research in Ethics (CEERE), which she founded in 2005 in connection to Strasbourg's Faculty of Social Sciences. Her contacts and research activities in collaboration with Yale University in the United States led Thiel to begin a summer school on interdisciplinary European Ethics in the summer of 2013. The summer school drew 41 students from 22 countries over five continents. Thiel has been studying sexual abuse in the Catholic Church since the 1990s. Her work as a physician and a theologian meant she was approached by sexual abuse victims; this inspired her to look more deeply at the issue. In 2017, her work led Pope Francis to appoint her a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life as part of the organisation's reform. New statues were introduced to change the lifetime membership into 5-year renewable terms, and to allow appointments to people regardless of religion. She has also advised the French Episcopal Conference for more than 20 years in its efforts to fight sexual abuse within the Church. In 2018, she published a 700-page, in-depth study on sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church. This book is called The Catholic Church facing sexual abuse and was published by Bayard Presse. Throughout her studies, she has stressed the importance of supporting and believing victims of sexual abuse, and uses their accounts in her writing. Thiel started the Journées Internationales d'Ethique (International Symposium on Ethics) in Strasbourg in about 2008. She also edits the CEERE newsletter. In addition to her books, she has published articles in several international journals. Thiel teaches and writes in English, German, and French. Though she mainly teaches in France, she has also taught in the United States, Canada, and Germany. Throughout her work at the intersection of ethics and the Church, she has stepped forward to share her beliefs: she has criticised the Church's ban on contraceptives and classifying homosexuality as a sin, and supported vaccines to help prevent the COVID-19 pandemic. Thiel believes the Church has to be adaptive in the face of changing issues and firmly believes the Church does not intend to be "behind the times." She has also expressed support for assisted suicide, for which she was criticised by other Pontifical Academy members.

Honours and awards

Memberships

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marie-Jo Thiel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marie-Jo Thiel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Marie-Jo Thiel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Marie-Jo Thiel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Marie-Jo Thiel

In research: Marie-Jo Thiel appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Marie-Jo Thiel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Marie-Jo Thiel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1957 births, 21st-century French Catholic theologians, 21st-century French medical doctors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marie-Jo Thiel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Marie-Jo Thiel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marie-Jo Thiel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Marie-Jo Thiel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marie-Jo Thiel in simple terms?

Why does Marie-Jo Thiel matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Marie-Jo Thiel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Marie-Jo Thiel.