AMEN. LET US ALL STAND UP AS ONE AND FIGHT FOR MOTHER CHURCH WHO IS NOW UNDER VICIOUS PERSECUTION BY THE HIGH PRIEST OF SATAN NAMED OBAMA

Thank you Fr. MItch.  I wanted to do a study like this now I have the info.

This article is awesome!  Fr. Mitch is such a treasure!  When I watch him teach, I feel like I am witnessing one of the original Apostles.  And his knowledge of the Didache proves it!  This document which dates back to the time of the Apostles proves that the Catholic Church has ALWAYS said the Truth about Life!  I hope the Bishops and the Holy Father himself will continue to raise the importance of Respect for Life; but the words ring hollow without the Church being vocal on Chastity! 

Why is there no preaching of Chastity?  No Sunday homilies?  Seems to me that we would not have the problems of infant death by birth control and abortion; and we wouldn’t have the problem of divorce if the people actually knew what Chastity meant and how to practice it.  After 52 years of life not understanding Chastity, I did the research and taught myself and have been living it for going on a year now.  Thankfully we have the Catechism.  All of the Chastity Speakers and talks on ESPN are nice - but NONE of them ever say what the DEFINITION of Chastity is!  Why do they assume that we know?  I am telling you, that NOBODY in the United States knows the true definition of Chastity from the Catechism.  I just wish my Catholic School would have had a class on it every year of my education!  That’s how important it is!  And looking back, I can only wonder how much better my life would have turned out, had someone told me.  Instead of looking back on a life of regrets, it could have been a life of treasures.

The article makes a clear distinction between the prevention of contraception and abortion or abortion inducing drugs.  The Church should do the same.

Thank you for this article. Catholics sitting in the pews need to read this as well as non-Catholics. We need to see this situation as an opportunity to educate all who are uninformed, mislead or have bought the secular lie.

I’d urge Catholics to read a number of histories of this topic.  Abortion is always materially murder (EV sect.62…infallibly declared) but the front end of abortion ( when it’s beginning point is)  is not infallibly defined yet by the Church.  If the fertilized egg and then cell mass can split as late as day 14 into identical twins and any such cell mass can be teased by scientists into twinning that late, then what Aquinas called a soul as substantial form that permeates every part of the body could not have been in the cell mass for two weeks.  The above essay is reporting is about people who had no idea about such embryology problems.
Here are links to three Catholics debating the twinning dilemna at Jesuit journal “Theological Studies” in the 1990’s ( free on the net because archives)..

Mark Johnson…against delayed personhood…
http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/56/56.4/56.4.7.pdf

Thomas Shannon…for delayed personhood
http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/57/57.4/57.4.8.pdf

jean porter….for delayed personhood…
http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/56/56.4/56.4.8.pdf

    John Paul II alluded to such scientific debates in Evangelium Vitae section 60 and noted the Church has not expressly committed itself on these matters (time of personhood).

Thank you Father Pacwa for this very important historical lesson. It pains me to say that the only place where I have heard this subject addressed directly and unequivocally in a homily has been in EWTN masses. The various priests that have gone through the parishes in my community, all good and holy men to be sure, have never addressed it. Given the dire statistics on use of contraception and the procurement of abortions, especially within the Catholic community, and given all that we know about the damaging consequences of both practices, one would think we would be hearing about this frequently from the pulpit but as we all know that is not the case. This void allows confusion about the Church’s teaching on sexuality to grow and spread in our Catholic community, and also allows the Nancy Pelosis of the world to speak out and act in the outrageous manner that they do.

Dear Father Mitch,
Thank you for sharing this information of Sacred Doctrine in our Roman Catholic Faith.
Will share with as many groups and people as I can.
St. Michael The Archangel defend us in battle against the wickedness and snares of the devil. Pray for us. Amen.

Excellent portrayal of this heartbreaking issue. This material was sorely lacking (and I blame liberal or at least distracted American bishops) in 1972-73 at a time when a coast to coast hue and cry, including civil disobedience could have reversed this ugly trend in our nation. We now see an appropriate response to Obama’s attempts to usurp the Constitution. How sad that when the same priests and pacifist Catholics were blocking troop trains (a year or two before Roe vs. Wade) to protest a war in S.E. Asia with lead to 55,000 casualties but their passion was fundamentally missing related to the deaths of 1,000,000 Americans per year.
  Also, for you 52-53% of CINOs (Catholics in name only) that voted for this administration in 2008 (or support local liberals), I hope that you will be driven to repent of this sin and take ownership of the blood on your hands. Hands stained by supporting Democrats that almost to a man believe in the unrestricted slaughter of the innocents. If not, at least walk down the road to some heretical demonination that helps you “feel” better about yourself, yet has no legitimate interest in your immortal soul.

I suspect Catholic teaching is older than that.  I suspect one could find evidence of the same teaching in the earlier Judaism.  It is certainly implicit there—after all, the best biblical argument against contraception is the story of Onan in Genesis.  The only problem is that Jews were no more tempted to abortion than they were to cannibalism, so it is possible that little was written about it.

Dr. Mark
    the Bishops re issued “Faithful Citizenship” at that time as a green light that Catholics did not have to vote on a one issue basis like abortion.  The Bishops were enthusiastic about health coverage for all and both Pope Benedict and Fr. Lombardi separately congradulated Obama the week he won with Lombardi saying it was “historic”.  It has now blew up in the faces of both Rome and the Bishops but let’s not blame laity only for supporting Obama.

bill bannon:

It seems to me that you are encouraging, “nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed.”  Is that what you mean to do?

These debates are only relevant in situations where the child is conceived outside the body (i.e., IVF etc), and we are already in a state of sin.

Where exactly do you mean to go with this line of reasoning?

We should pray to hear more about this, and topics like it, from our priests! Mine gives the occasional wake-up call to our parish, and God bless him for it! It’s no longer something we can trust the congregation to understand fully without education. That’s okay—we know the way forward! Bl. JPII, pray for us.

Here is some more excellent information on Sts. Augustine and Aquinas from William May:

http://culture-of-life.org//content/view/499/97/

re: Gene

“If the fertilized egg and then cell mass can split as late as day 14 into identical twins and any such cell mass can be teased by scientists into twinning that late, then what Aquinas called a soul as substantial form that permeates every part of the body could not have been in the cell mass for two weeks.”

I consider this a non-issue. Either there was one soul there from the beginning, and a second soul was infused into the twinned child (I refuse to refer to this as a cell mass, as it plays into the pro-abort meme that it’s “only clump of cells”) at the moment of twinning; or God, knowing that this would be a multiple birth, infused two souls at the moment of conception. That plays nicely into the special closeness that twins have.

I see no problem here. Sure the same God who can cause the Real Presence of Jesus exist where there was once bread and wine, while maintaining the accidents of bread and wine, is able to do either of these things.

The point is, we cannot prove that this is NOT what happens. Therefore we MUST assume that there is a ensouled human life present from the moment of conception. After all, there is no test for the presence of a soul. Anything else is attempting to split theological hairs in order to justify the denial of life.

Since contraception is inherently evil, as well as abortion, it really doesn’t matter. The act of stopping the natural cycle that was begun at conception would be one or the other. If there is no soul, contraception. If there is a soul, abortion. Either way, we are interfering in God’s plan. Either way, sinful.

Fr. Mitch, thanks for this thorough and accurate history.  This history and much more is the subject of “A Love for Life: Christianity’s Consistent Protection of the Unborn”, by Dennis DiMauro.  Significantly, Christian doctrine regarding the morality of abortion was consistent with, and inherited from, the Jews.  Exodus 21:22-25 shows that causing a miscarriage at any point during a pregnancy was considered sinful and punishable under ancient Jewish law, viz., the Rule of Proportionality, commonly known in modern terms as “an eye for an eye”.  DiMauro also points out that the first and second century B.C. writings in “Sibylline Oracles” provide that women “having burdens in the womb, produced abortions; and their offspring were cast unlawfully away” were condemned to hell.  Likewise, in “Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides” (From the first century B.C.) provides that “a woman should not destroy the unborn babe in her belly”.  Too, 1 Enoch (written in the first or second century B.C.) states that a wicked angel taught human beings to “smash the embryo in the womb.”  Similarly, the great Jewish philosopher Philo spoke out against abortion centuries before Christ. 
Thanks for the illuminating article.

Dr. Mark
    I correct myself here.  Apparently the Bishops put an introduction in the reissue of “Faithful Citizenship” which tried to undo the green light effect on voting for Obama found in the 2007 edition.

Only the Augustine quote from On Marriage addresses anything relating to contraception. The rest are against abortion. For an article that lists both Church teachings in the title, I expected a solid coverage of both. Birth control being a more recent phenomenon, I can understand if it was a more modern issue and not addressed until the 30’s. I expected more.

I’m feeling edified and united to our earliest brothers and sisters in the faith. Thank you, Fr. Mitch, for bringing this encouraging evidence to our attention.

RE: Dennis Alcover

Very well said, as Aristotle says not every truth can be demostrated, otherwise we would demostrate back to infinity, in the case of twinning let’s assume God knows what he is doing and move on, besides how many women who have had abortions had them prior to the 14 days as Bill outlines, not to justify his argument on ensoulment but to make a point.

I find it very interesting that all of the bishops are not speaking out regarding the recent contraception issue.  Do all of the bishops seriously support the church’s teaching on contraception?  Or,  are they saying just that they don’t want contraception issues dictated by the state? If the church really teaches to not contracept for “personal convenience”  what are the reasons to make it ok for conscientious Catholics to practice contraception? Obviously, there must be reasons as it is so widely practiced?  I have heard more on the news and in the print media in 2 weeks than on the church’s teaching on contraception in the last 40 years.  Contraception has been very sparingly discouraged with an eye wink.  However, if contraception is a serious sin,  it is not taught as such from Catholic pulpits with any frequency.  It seems our current very secular presidential administration believes it knows the hearts and minds of Catholics.  Is that secularization movement calling out the Roman Catholic Church?  I would love to hear from an informed sources the truth.  Contraception right or wrong.  If contraception is wrong then teach the people fearlessly with love. That is what Our Lord did.  Was it not?  Somethings are hard to hear.  In the readings yesterday, it was said those with ears ought to hear.  I hope we hear from our Fathers.

Maria
  My view is that the identical twinning phenomenon at 14 days invalidates calling implantation prevention “abortion”.  Exaggerations of when ensoulment begins will make a lot of non Catholic, well read people think we are off balance and then they will be disinclined to listen to anything we say.  The possibly 50% rate of failed blastocyst implantations by nature ( if such are people)....means that half of the people God creates die within a week.  That means there are 7 billion people on earth and another 7 billion dying within one week of life inside women and the Church never mentions this massive death rate at all.  Absurd…and the problem is solved by the 14 day twinning people I linked to and I linked also to their opposition to let readers decide apart from my view.  Didn’t you notice that?  Here is another example: two fraternal twin fertilized ova can fuse and form one chimerical person.  Where did the extra soul go?  And according to Aquinas, the tissue would die with the withdrawal of the apposite soul.  There can only be a person when the cell mass can no longer be teased by scientists into becoming twins, quadruplets etc.  None of the ancient authors mentioned in the article knew of these things.  The article also hides from view the reduced penances of the Middle Ages due to Delayed ensoulment theory then by Aquinas et al.  The Vatican told that account in its 1974 document on procured abortion.

Dennis
  If ensoulment were at fertilization, the chimerical person could not occur.  Two fertilized fraternal twin ova lie too close and fuse into one cell mass.  Yet Aquinas’ soul as substantial form cannot leave a part of a body and that part not decay.
Ergo the two fertlized ova could not have been ensouled and then become one person with one soul.

Paul Pitner,

You raise an interesting question. Until the era of antibiotic drugs and public sanitation, the infant mortality rate among the general population even in the developed world was staggeringly high. Read the family histories of persons who lived in the 16th through 19th centuries: their biographies often record the births of seven, eight, or nine brothers and sisters, all of whom died before the age of five; or they themselves had five children, of whom all died by age three, except one. And that one died at age eleven.

Really, really awful stuff. An ancestor of mine had five children, all of whom died in one week from diphtheria (three on Tuesday; two on Thursday). And he and his wife somehow found the courage to have more children after that.

Paul, with so many children not likely to make it to adulthood, the last thing a couple who hoped to see grandchildren one day, would do, would be to contracept.

Contraception might have been practiced among people of the demi-monde, in the twilight world of self-indulgence and living for the moment, but the desire would have been rare among your average Christian or Jewish family who wanted descendants to survive them.

Thank you for this history, it does help confirm that the Church has always taught that contraception and abortion are wrong.  Today’s American culture is attempting to convince us that the teachings are old and out of date.  A history is not going to help any one realize that the teachings are relevant to today.  Can someone please try using Theology of the Body to start educating the public and faithful alike??  I have written up something that I posted on my facebook, but it would be better coming from a priest or from a bishop would be even better.

https://www.facebook.com/angela.ploran/posts/10150590479587319

Outstanding!

Thank you, Father!

Great article Father Mitch

P.S. I just want to add to my comment above, that because parents nowadays may reasonably hope and expect that the majority of their children will survive to adulthood, that would not mean that their use of contraception to keep down the number of children born would be morally acceptable.

Parents nowadays, who for serious reasons feel the need to space the births of their children, or to limit the size of their families, may have recourse to NFP (Natural Family Planning), which when used correctly has a reliability rate that exceeds that of most oral contraceptives. The successful use of NFP requires periods of abstinence from sexual relations for periods of approximately five to seven days once per month. NFP does not require a physician’s prescription, and is safe for the use of women of any age. Once the cost of the program materials has been paid, NFP is free; it has not been shown to have an associated risk of cancer, stroke, or heart attack in women of any age. It does not cause women to excrete hormones into the water supply, which could interfere with the fertility of our wildlife.

@Ed

A minor correction:  Philo was a contemporary of Christ (though he lived in Alexandria, not Judea or Galilee).

Thank you Fr. Mitch for this masterful recital of the consistent teaching of the Church (including our separated brethen until 1930). The right for the Church to teach & the faithful to practice this doctrine, whether individually or in a business or institutional setting, is protected by the First Amendment, regardless of its popularity in polls or even among Catholics.

Our Constitution provides that government must accomodate itself to this preeminent right, not the other way around. For these rights to mean anything to anyone in the future, we must prevail now, regardless of cost. We owe this both to those who paid the price for this inestmable patrimony, and to those who follow who will be reduced to servitude if we fail.

This is the time; this is the battle. Lose this, and mandated abortion will surely follow, performed by every healthcare provider, as they will be compelled to do by HHS, renamed the Ministry of Love.

Like I’ve always said (in other blog posts, too), the use of contraception IS NOT BIBLICAL!!!!  I don’t know why ALL Christians and Jews don’t also forbid contraception. Assuming that non-Catholic Christians get their “authority” from the Bible only (sola scritura), how are they justifying the use of contraception? There’s no passage anywhere in the Bible - Old or New Testament - that promotes the use of contraception. We’re the only Christian Church that has this position on the use of contraception.

Fr. Pacwa:  Thank you so much for the “ancient” - “modern” teaching about abortion.  My queen and I have seven children and, recently by marriage, eighteen grandchildren, up from fifteen.  My, my, we have instant coffee and tea; now instant children/grandchildren.

“God Bless us, everyone,

Phil & Sandra Ferguson, O.P./Lay

Those who are distinguishing contraception from abortion may be mistakenly believing the canard that contraception reduces abortion. In point of fact, it does not, as Paul VI pointed out in Humanae Vitae. His indisputable logic goes like this:

The marital act fulfills 2 purpsoses, the unitave and the procreative.
Contraception separates these fhereby enabling sex to be performed for the unitave (pleasure) alone.
Anytime a couple (selfishly) engages in the marital act while not (generously) open to the new life that may be conceived is at risk to seek an abortion, particularly chemical (Plan B or Ella).
By greatly reducing the chance of pregnancy, contraception encourages sex while fertile.
All forms of contraception fail; the risk of pregnancy is never reduced to zero.

Therefore, contraception inevitably increases abortion.

This is borne out by the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), which reports that 50% of abortions are the result of contraceptive failure. Consider that even a fraction of a percentage failure rate, multiplied by the millions (billions?) of copulations performed while contracepting, must necessarily lead to undesired, unwelcome offspring. Those few that survive an otherwise hostile uterine environment will likely have their perserverance rewarded by dismemberment and destruction in a surgical abortion.

The unnamed 800 pound gorilla in the room is the abortionist.

Thank you Fr Pacwa for this wonderful summary of the magisterial history of our Faith on these doctrines. The ignorance out there on this subject by liberal bloggers and commentators is absurd in its dimensions. Many thanks again! God bless.
Fr Phil Kane, St Joseph Church, Pilot Grove , MO

Bill,

I must have missed the memo that declared Aquinas’ teachings infallible dogma.

He stated that the “soul as substantial form cannot leave a part of a body and that part not decay.” That may be true. It may also be true that the tissue belonging to the “extra” person is absorbed before it could decay, so that may be a non-issue. As for where the “extra” soul went, where do any of the go after death? Where does the soul of a 6-month stillborn child go? So I fail to see a problem here.

Or, Aquinas could be wrong.

My point is, even Aquinas did not know the answer for sure. Only God does. So If we er, we must er on the side of there being a soul from the moment of conception. No soul, no foul. But if we presume to know that God wouldn’t have put a soul in that until it is x number of days old we may kill an ensouled person. That we will have to answer for.

I also have no problem with the possibility of there being 7 billion on Earth and 7 billion dying in the womb. I leave that to God’s Plan. I’m sure he can find room for all of us.

Thank you Father Pacwa.  I was impressed by your knowledge and dedication to detail when I first met you years ago at St.Therese Academy in Irving, Texas.  And as a regular viewer of the Daily Mass on EWTN usually the last thing before retiring at midnight, my knowledge of Church history and doctrine is always enhanced by your interesting homilies there.  I thank God Pope Paul VI has the courage to publish Humanae Vitae when it appeared the dissidents of Vatican II were intent on destroying the infallible sanctity of life and marriage. It was a mistake to bring the Church into the modern world, and as Pope Paul VI feared Satan was indeed allowed in the sanctuary.  The current administration seems intent on destroying life and the sanctity of marriage and seeks to abrogate the First amendment as Obama’s next attempted socialist assault on religion. God help us.

Dennis
    But you can see if you are honest with yourself how some human beings would see exactly what Shannon and Porter see in the data….that a totipotential cell mass that can divide into multiple people at day 14 cannot be a person prior to that division.  You need not agree to see how others may be reasonable in seeing otherwise than you.
    Aquinas is not infallible but neither are any testimonies listed in the above essay which leaves out the later Jerome and the later Augustine putting murder itself later in the abortion process when the preborn is “formed”  based on what might have been or might not have been a mistake in the Septuagint version of Exodus 21:12.  But that they moved from medicines being murder to putting off murder til the preborn is formed…means many people could be easily mistaken in this area if two Fathers could change on where the front end of abortion is.  Abortion is infallibly condemned but its beginning day is not.  Go to Curt Jester and you’ll see a poster state that people using contraception are excommunicated latae sentenciae because the poster makes the stretch you are making in my view.  He added to the canon in effect because extremism follows this topic.  He therefore has most Catholics couples under latae sentenciae.  Remmber the point of Regensburg….that faith without reason in Islam leads to fanatical views.
    Here is the catechism of Trent online stating delayed ensoulment which means that you Dennis would have been defending it in the late 16th century.  Trent catechism/ Creed/ Article 3/ go down to ” By the Holy Ghost”/ 5th paragraph/ last phrase….
      ” ..... for according to the order of nature the rational soul is united to the body only after a certain lapse of time.”

    That was the catechism which felt that only Christ was immediately ensouled…later Mary would seem to also.  Beginning in the 17th century two Catholic scientists began the modern Catholic position but St. Alphonsus after them maintained Aquinas’ position.  The two scientists of course knew nothing of the twinning problem or the chimera problem or the 50% rate of non implantations.

Way to go, Fr. Mitch!  Thank you for explaining this so concisely, and for courageously speaking the truth.

This is an issue that should concern ALL not just Catholics.This administration is assaulting the 1st Amendment and religious liberty in general.

When Does Human Life Begin:  A Scientific Perspective

http://www.westchesterinstitute.net/images/wi_whitepaper_life_print.pdf

Quote 1:  “Among the chief obfuscations and confusions is the claim that we do not know when human life begins. This frequently takes the form of claiming that the question is a matter of faith or religious belief. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as is lucidly and convincingly demonstrated in this White Paper.  When a human life begins is a question of science. The ethicist Peter Singer of Princeton University is famous, or notorious, for his advocacy of selective infanticide for babies who are born and then found to be defective in a way that makes them unwanted. Most people will find that argument morally abhorrent. But Singer is right about one thing. As he has said on many occasions, he and the pope are in complete agreement on when human life begins.”

Quote 2:  “This article considers the current scientific evidence in human embryology and addresses two central questions concerning the beginning of life: 1) in the course of sperm-egg interaction, when is a new cell formed that is distinct from either sperm or egg? and 2) is this new cell a new human organism—i.e., a new human being? Based on universally accepted scientific criteria, a new cell, the human zygote, comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion, an event that occurs in less than a second. Upon formation, the zygote immediately initiates a complex sequence of events that establish the molecular conditions required for continued embryonic development. The behavior of the zygote is radically unlike that of either sperm or egg separately and is characteristic of a human organism. Thus, the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that a zygote is a human organism and that the life of a new human being commences at a scientifically well defined “moment of conception.” This conclusion is objective, consistent with the factual evidence, and independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos.”

Additional quotes about when human life begins:

1) “Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei ... and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning ... of a human being.” (Moore, Keith L., Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker, Inc., 1988, p.2.)

2) “Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. ... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.” (O’Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29).

3) “Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote). ... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual.” (Carlson, Bruce M., Patten’s Foundations of Embryology, 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p.3.)

4) “Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.” (Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146.)

5) “The fertilized egg, now properly called an embryo, must make its way to the uterus.” (Carlson, Bruce M., Human Embryology and Developmental Biology. St. Louis: Mosby, 1994, p.3).

6) “From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals.”  Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, MD 1967

7) “After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into existence.  This is no longer a matter of taste of opinion.  Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”  Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris.  Discoverer of the Down’s Syndrome chromosome

8) “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”  Professor M. Matthew-Roth, Harvard University Medical School

9) “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.” Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic

10) “That is, in human reproduction, when sperm joins ovum, these two individual cells cease to be, and their union generates a new and distinct organism. This organism is a whole, though in the beginning developmentally immature, member of the human species. Readers need not take our word for this: They can consult any of the standard human-embryology texts, such as Moore and Persaud’s The Developing Human, Larsen’s Human Embryology, Carlson’s Human Embryology & Developmental Biology, and O’Rahilly and Mueller’s Human Embryology & Teratology.” – Dr. Robert George, “Embryo”

11) “Human embryos, whether they are formed by fertilization (natural or in vitro) or by successful somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT — i.e., cloning), do have the internal resources and active disposition to develop themselves to the mature stage of a human organism, requiring only a suitable environment and nutrition. In fact, scientists distinguish embryos from other cells or clusters of cells precisely by their self-directed, integral functioning — their organismal behavior. Thus, human embryos are what the embryology textbooks say they are, namely, human organisms — living individuals of the human species — at the earliest developmental stage.” – Dr. Robert George, “Embryo”

12)  The widely used medical textbook “The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology”, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders, 1998, states at page 2 that “The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous .... This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being ....” At page 18 this theme is repeated: “Human development begins at fertilization [emphasis in original] ....”

Also recommended: 

http://www.clinicquotes.com/site/story.php?id=28

http://www.fallibleblogma.com/index.php/when-does-science-say-human-life-begins/

http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/kisc/kisc_34lifebegins.html

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/in-the-womb-2228#tab-Videos/01586_05

This National Geographic video of a baby developing in the womb is also fascinating.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/feeds/cv-seo/Full-Episodes/All-Full-Episodes/In-the-Womb-2.html

Four statements seem particularly interesting, but the entire video is worth watching:

“Once within the egg wall, the sperm’s nucleus is drawn toward the egg’s.  The two cells gradually and gracefully become one.  This is the moment of conception – when an individual’s unique set of DNA is created – a human signature that never existed before and will never be repeated.”

“The mother provides the shelter and the basics -  food, water and oxygen.  But the real star of the show is the fetus herself – building, dividing, growing according to an intricate set of plans created at the moment of conception.”

“The genes she’s [the girl shown in the womb] inherited already predetermine her looks and much of her character.  Whether she’s stubborn or intelligent, a thrill-seeker or good at music and even her vulnerabilities to certain diseases like cancer, schizophrenia and diabetes.  The exact course of her life will depend on such things as her friends, family and environment.  But at the instant of fertilization, much of her future is predetermined.”

“Where it once seemed that the mental development of a baby began at birth, now it appears that birth could be a relatively insignificant event in developmental terms.  She may have to support herself after birth, but as for the process of thinking, learning and remembering, she’s already been hard at it for three months [before birth].  And her brain will continue to grow at the same rate for the next year.”

This is a great article. We need more instructive articles like this one to help fallen away Catholics to understand the seriousness of contraception and abortion. There is grave evil here and must never be supported by anyone who claims to respect God and what He has created.

Mike
    John Paul II and I believe human life begins at conception but not an individual in my case and John Paul sees that question of the individual’s beginning as separate from human life and as an area the Church has not committed on.
The fertilized egg is human matter from conception but not an individual if the cell mass can two weeks later can be 4 individuals.  Look at your Doctor quotes:

6) “From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals.”  Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, MD 1967

      No it does not because it may become twins….individuals don’t split once they are individuals.

7) “After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into existence.  This is no longer a matter of taste of opinion.  Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”  Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris.  Discoverer of the Down’s Syndrome chromosome

      Same thing…..human matter and life has begun but that matter can be teased into becoming 4 individuals.

8) “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”  Professor M. Matthew-Roth, Harvard University Medical School

      What if the cell mass divides into quads in two weeks….did an individual soul divide which Aquinas ruled out.

9) “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.” Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic

      Bingo…...totally correct….life is present in a totipotential cell mass that might restrict to one individual or might divide into four.

Some of this discussion illustrates how deeply the philosophy of materialism has crept into the reasoning of even faithful individuals. Trying to explain ensoulment from physical causes of fetus development is mixing primary and multiple secondary causes. Remember, the creation of a new life is a miracle where the man and women cooperate with God in bringing a new life into this world. Everything that happens with regard to this miraculous event is not totally reducible within the physical realm. The primary cause of a new human being as taught by the church is the ensoulment of the individual at conception. All else is merely speculation based on incomplete information.

It is this speculation that has caused some confusion concerning when human life begins. Aquinas, and others, speaking as philosophers or scientist, but definitely not infallibility as the Vicar of Christ, have put forward many ideas over the centuries. Aquinas argued that the human body could not receive a soul until it was sufficiently organized so as to be human. This approach derived from the observation that the body decays and becomes disorganized at death just as it was observed that early fetal development was a progression from disorder to order as the child developed in the womb. This primitive view of human development was scientifically abandoned at least 100-200 years ago with the development the microscope and modern medicine. We now know that at conception the fertilized egg is a highly organized separate life that has all the information to grow and develop into a human being.

It is ironic that those who support abortion, Pelosi et al, turn to this “medieval” understanding of human development when going to Aquinas and then criticize the church as “medieval” for its stand on abortion. However, it is they who are using “medieval” arguments to support abortion and it is the church that uses the latest scientific evidence to argue that life begins at conception. It is also the church that has consistently taught, as wonderfully outlined by Father Macwa that human life from its very start within the womb must be protected.

An helpful, relatively brief treatment of the “twinning” issue:

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/monozygotic_twinning_and_abortion/

The follow is a helpful, relatively brief treatment of the “twinning” issue:

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/monozygotic_twinning_and_abortion/

Bill,
I don’t get your implication that I would be defending something in the late 16th century. I gather you are taking a shot at me, but that’s OK.
Your thoughts and citations are very interesting, and give me a lot to think about, but they don’t really change anything. None if this is infallible teaching, nothing definitively tells us when the soul attaches, my point is we don’t know. And if we don’t know we must er on the side of caution.
As for who should be excommunicated and for what, again I leave this to the Church. I did not say that, I did not imply it. You dragged that in out of left field. All I am saying is that none of this settles the question of when ensoulment occurs. So we are free to draw our own conclusions.
Finally, the point is moot. When it comes to the question of when LIFE begins I will go with the current CCC. Paragraph 2319 states “every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred…” soul or not, life is sacred from the moment of conception. That’s good enough for me.

Nick
    You wrote: ” The primary cause of a new human being as taught by the church is the ensoulment of the individual at conception.”
    No she does not teach that.  She teaches that human life begins from conception but not an ensouled individual.  That human life could divide two weeks later into 4 quadruplets.  A soul and an individual cannot split into 4…though it would come in handy if we could do that some days.

Dennis
    Your orientation is very about obedience.  Transplanted into other periods of the Church, you therefore would obey the magisterium then and there…many traditionalists would…..and in the Trent catechism, you would have had to obey the passage I cited before:
      Trent catechism/ Creed/ Article 3/ go down to ” By the Holy Ghost”/ 5th paragraph
      ” ..... for according to the order of nature the rational soul is united to the body only after a certain lapse of time.”

    Keep the infallible separate from the non infallible.  Abortion is infallibly condemned in sect.62 of Evangelium Vitae.
It’s beginning date is not infallibly declared but by the time a woman has a surgery abortion, it is later than individuation
and later than the capacity to twin.

This is an absolutely excellent summary of the history of the Catholic teaching/Tradition on contraception and abortion!  It is very clear that there is a clear teaching on this throughout the centuries, and these are the religious truths that all should be free to live according to.  These are the truths that the Obama administration is threatening to take away from us.

St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote his treatise “On the Soul and the Resurrection” in about 379 after an interchange he had with his sister, St. Macrina, following the death of their brother, St. Basil the Great.  In this treatise they reflect not only the state of the soul after death, but on the life of the soul from its first moment of existence when God’s image and likeness are imparted to it.  St. Gregory of Nyssa says:

“There remains the question of the when of the soul’s commencement of existence: it follows immediately on that which we have already discussed….no one who can reflect will imagine an after-birth of the soul, i.e. that [the soul] is younger than the moulding of the body…It remains therefore that we must think that the point of commencement of existence is one and the same for body and soul…we grasp from these considerations the fact that in the compound which results from the joining of both (soul and body) there is a simultaneous passage of both into existence; the one does not come first, any more than the other comes after.”

Mike F
    Now check normal science sources on parthenogenesis.  It occurs naturally only in some animals not in humans.

wiki:
    “Parthenogenesis is seen to occur naturally in aphids, Daphnia, rotifers, nematodes and some other invertebrates, as well as in many plants and certain lizards. Komodo dragons and the hammerhead- and blacktip sharks have recently been added to the list of vertebrates—along with several genera of fish, amphibians, and reptiles—that exhibit differing forms of asexual reproduction, including true parthenogenesis, gynogenesis, and hybridogenesis (an incomplete form of parthenogenesis.”

    But check normal science books instead ideologue sites.

Bill,
That very well may be, but the fact is I am alive now and can only speak to what I do now. I do not know what my attitude would have been then. Neither do you, my friend, even though you presume to.

I spent 40 years NOT being obedient to the Church and Magisterium. Truth be told longer than that, but at least I was a kid then and could be excused for not knowing better. I may never have regained my footing if I lived back then, or I may have stayed fallen away. I do not know, and neither do you.

Isn’t that the core of this discussion, then? I do not presume to know when a human is ensouled. Neither does anyone else other than God. Even the Church does not teach when, as you pointed out. They do teach that life is sacred from the moment of conception, and that contraception and abortion are intrinsically evil. Since obedience to the Church is one of those things we are called to do it really doesn’t matter when ensoulment happens. As Father Mitch says, that’s a management issue, not my problem.

You want to latch unto the Church’s silence to support your argument, but it really doesn’t. “She teaches that human life begins from conception but not an ensouled individual.” This is true, but you seem to want to bend that to your purpose and imply that this means the Church teaches that human life is NOT ensouled from the moment of conception. I maintain that is NOT what they are saying. They are not taking an INFALLIBLE, DOGMATIC position either way.

I do not know what is driving your insistence on the soul not being present until some arbitrary date. You insist that something that cannot be scientifically proven, the presence of a soul, hinges solely upon whether twinning can still happen. You don’t want to admit that God can ensoul life at conception, and add a soul to the new life after twinning, or use some other mechanism. Again, I don’t know how He does it, and neither do you. Aquinas didn’t, either. He probably knows now, though. God is not limited by physical benchmarks. Fish do not reproduce or grow after they are dead, yet He fed 5,000 with 2 dead fish (and had leftovers!).

This argument is very much like the one I keep having with a good friend who is Protestant about the Real Presence. In the final analysis (and he admits to this), his biggest stumbling block is that he cannot conceive of bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ, without changing appearance, taste, consistency. It offends him that we believe this happens, because he thinks it breaks all the laws of the physical world. He doesn’t go so far as to say that he is limiting God, but that is what he is doing.

Peace, brother.

Bruce J
    Regensburg: to put faith over the rational is to invite fanaticism as one sees in Islam.  St. Gregory of Nyssa had no way of knowing that the original preembryo could divide and twin or quadruplet at day 14.  Were he here today, he would read in these matters.

B abies
A borted
A llowing
L eisure

The ancients sacrifice/murdered their own flesh & blood to an unreal god, Baal. We still do this today.
Babies are kept from being conceived, killed after so that people (women and men) can indulge their own wants, desires, leisures & lusts. SAD

Dennis
  Dissent in thought or action is immoral if an issue is settled infallibly (Church) or inerrantly (Scripture).  Dissent in thought or action is possible if the issue is not covered by infallibility or inerrancy.  Despite Lumen Gentium 25’s ” religious submission of mind and will” as to the non infallible when oft repeated, the Church imprimaturs moral theology tomes that balance LG 25 with the exception of sincere, studious, prayerful dissent…(see conservative Germain Grisez/ ” Christian Moral Principles”/ page 854/ a tome for seminaries).
    The reason one needs dissent is history…Catholic History…Popes of the past supporting ideas that are now called intrinsic evils (see Pope Leo X defend burning heretics at the stake in Exsurge Domine/ art.33/ condemned).  See Pope Nicholas V in Romanus Pontifex (mid 4th large paragraph) give Portugal the right to enslave perpetually natives who resist the gospel and Portugal can take their land.  Portugal then did both and got three subsequent Popes to confirm the permissions in writing.
    Both documents, one doctrinal/ one prudential, needed Catholics to dissent and virtually none did.  People then died were materially murdered as a result of those two Popes in contexts which are now condemned by Catholic positions e.g. at Vatican II on non coercion in matters of conscience.
    The twinning phenomenon tells a reading Catholic girl who gets raped and who does not want to give birth to a baby
that looks like her rapist, that if she takes a pill that prevents implantation, she is indeed terminating a human organism but not a human individual since that organism can divide and an individual can’t.  This is not a dark iffy area…the cell mass individuates post cells being totipotential…post implantation.  The girl has a right to notice that historically Popes have let people die on the basis of their ideological non infallible positions (the above two examples).  She can notice that Pope Benedict is not working on the ensoulment problem at all but he is writing bestsellers about the non emergency level of theology.  Should she wait 5 centuries?  I don’t think she can.  We needed dissent in 1455 (Romanus Pontifex) and in 1520 (Exsurge Domine) and it wasn’t there.  And tragedies then occured which modern Church leaders never discuss.

Bill, you miss a critical point by limited or selective quoting of church teaching. The church teaches that we are both body and soul. As humans we exist both within the physical and spiritual realm. To be truly human and alive is to be both a living body and soul. I suggest you review elements of the CCC concerning Body and Soul. You are correct that the church has not explicitly stated when the soul enters the body. Some elements of the process are a mystery. In her medical ignorance the church managed to present a truthful statement concerning the creation of new human life as cited in the Trent catechism. I would follow it within the context of all the church’s teaching and in concert with our improved knowledge of physical human development. You try to draw a contradiction where none exists.  You correctly sate, abortion is infallibly condemned. As the church teaches, “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person…[CCC 2270]”  “The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual…[CCC 362] The human body shares in the dignity of ‘the image of God’: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, …[CCC 364]“ We may each draw our own conclusions at this point noting that to be human is to have a body and soul and it is this human being that the church protects in its stand against abortion.  From a secular position alone the new life must be protected because it is a physical human being. The secular world sees one cause for human life, that of conception at the subcellular level. See the book Embryo, A Defense of Human Life by R. George and C. Tollefsen, ISBN: 978-0-385-52282-2. From our church perspective we know the spiritual realm takes precedence and that the primary cause of a new life is the action of God. In either case it is the same result. Speculation on twinning and its effect on ensoulment is interesting but not specifically useful to the conversation. Such speculation misleads many concerning the teaching of the church and provides fodder for our enemies.

Nick
  Be careful about using ccc quotes for infallibility.  It doesn’t work unless the ccc is actually citing an infallible passage.
Here is the infallible condemnation of abortion:

Evangelium Vitae sect.62
    ” Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. “

    Common sense tells you he is talking about surgical abortion otherwise he easily could have mention drugs which prevent implantation.  He did not because the Bishops he polled I suspect did not agree with him on contraception…neither did two of the best theologians of the twentieth century, Rahner and Haring.  Avoid creeping infallibility.
    As for speculation on twinning being useless, you are totally wrong.  Do you think the Jesuit debate at Theological Studies that went on for years by biologists got them a big paycheck?  The opposition fellow, Mark Johnson, on your side of the issue put in incredible work precisely because he knew it was thoroughly relevant.  His achilles heal was pretending otherwise by depending on the rarity of twinning as a factor…to dismiss it like you.  He was then showed that rarity is irrelevant when biologist can tease any time like cell mass into dividing into multiples…thus the potential for all cell masses to be so teased means the restricting organization of an individual has not begun at two weeks.
    Giving enemies fodder?  You can’t do so if you follow the truth unless they misuse a truth but Aquinas said we are not responsible for unreasonable scandal…only for reasonable scandal.
    Check my post above your post to which I’m responding.

Ah, Bill, so we come down to it. All the quotes, all the considerable research you obviously have done, go to serve the ability to justify the killing of an innocent. You will quote non-infallible documents, then reject CCC quotes because they are non-infallible. You pick and chose your arguments, and finally come to their natural conclusion.

“The twinning phenomenon tells a reading Catholic girl who gets raped and who does not want to give birth to a baby that looks like her rapist, that if she takes a pill that prevents implantation, she is indeed terminating a human organism but not a human individual since that organism can divide and an individual can’t.”

So you will give cover to adding another victim to the crime of rape? Aging, you cannot prove that there is no ensoulment at the moment of conception. All the talk of it cannot happen comes down to the fact that you do not want it to be so. I say God can ensoul at the moment of conception if He wants to, but I admit I don’t know. I just leave that to Him. You say it does not happen, He will not do it, it CANNOT happen, but you still do not KNOW, you only hypothesize.

But on that alone, you finally come down trying to justify the destruction of human life, and the continued victimization of a rape victim. Someone who someday may realize that preventing implantation meant terminating a life. Why? Because you presume that she will suffer anguish because she will “see the face of her rapist”? Can you not fathom that she may see the face of a miracle? Should I direct you to all the stories of mothers who bravely refused abortion after rape, or the wonderful people who are only alive because their mother did not pursue your solution to the crime done to them?

How is what you are saying different than what Planned Parenthood feeds society? It’s just a clump of cells. It’s a choice. It has to be safe, legal, and rare so we can help rape victims, incest victims, save mother’s lives. You just limit your argument to the first 14 days, and dress it up with scholarly citations of Church Fathers and documents. It all just comes down to rationalization. Along with an obvious disapproval of Pope Benedict’s priorities. Sorry he does not consult you on his writing schedule. I can see how you must be disappointed.

I believe Martin Luther was also well educated, well read, and similarly sure that Rome was completely misguided about…well, eventually everything. We see how well that worked out.

I may be wrong. I may be stuck in “obedience mode.” That’s fine with me. At least I admit I don’t know, and therefore will er on the side of life and the teachings of the Church.

Bill,
so we come down to it. All the quotes, all the considerable research you obviously have done, go to serve the ability to justify the killing of an innocent. You will quote non-infallible documents, then reject CCC quotes because they are non-infallible. You pick and chose your arguments, and finally come to their natural conclusion.

“The twinning phenomenon tells a reading Catholic girl who gets raped and who does not want to give birth to a baby that looks like her rapist, that if she takes a pill that prevents implantation, she is indeed terminating a human organism but not a human individual since that organism can divide and an individual can’t.”

So you will give cover to adding another victim to the crime of rape? Aging, you cannot prove that there is no ensoulment at the moment of conception. All the talk of it cannot happen comes down to the fact that you do not want it to be so. I say God can ensoul at the moment of conception if He wants to, but I admit I don’t know. I just leave that to Him. You say it does not happen, He will not do it, it CANNOT happen, but you still do not KNOW, you only hypothesize.

But on that alone, you finally come down trying to justify the destruction of human life, and the continued victimization of a rape victim. Someone who someday may realize that preventing implantation meant terminating a life. Why? Because you presume that she will suffer anguish because she will “see the face of her rapist”? Can you not fathom that she may see the face of a miracle? Should I direct you to all the stories of mothers who bravely refused abortion after rape, or the wonderful people who are only alive because their mother did not pursue your solution to the crime done to them?

How is what you are saying different than what Planned Parenthood feeds society? It’s just a clump of cells. It’s a choice. It has to be safe, legal, and rare so we can help rape victims, incest victims, save mother’s lives. You just limit your argument to the first 14 days, and dress it up with scholarly citations of Church Fathers and documents. It all just comes down to rationalization. Along with an obvious disapproval of Pope Benedict’s priorities. Sorry he does not consult you on his writing schedule. I can see how you must be disappointed.

I believe Martin Luther was also well educated, well read, and similarly sure that Rome was completely misguided about…well, eventually everything. We see how well that worked out.

I may be wrong. I may be stuck in “obedience mode.” That’s fine with me. At least I admit I don’t know, and therefore will er on the side of life and the teachings of the Church.

Hi Bill,

I’m curious what your background is.  Are you an expert in the field of bioethics, embryology or genetics?  If so, where do you work?  Have you written any peer-reviewed research papers on the subject that I can read?

You seem to be very active in promoting your views about this issue.  I searched your name and “twinning” and found that you’ve been arguing this point at the National Catholic Reporter, First Things, Jimmy Akin, Bad Catholic, Vox Nova, Crisis, Amy Welborn and other places.

If I may make a couple of suggestions?  It would be helpful when you come into a venue like this to give a bit more of an explanation of who you are and what your intentions are, because there are people who use an approach very similar to the one you’re using here in order to try to play a game of “gotcha” against pro-life people -  straining to create exceptions in order to undermine the rule against abortion.  From other comments I’ve read from you, it appears that you’re not one of those people.  But the approach you’re taking is similar enough that it will raise red flags with those committed to defending human life.

It also isn’t helpful to essentially impugn the honesty of people who don’t accept your arguments quickly enough.  Maybe you don’t realize it, but when you say things like “But you can see if you are honest with yourself how some human beings would see exactly what Shannon and Porter see in the data”, that’s insulting. You’ve made other similar comments at other websites.  If your intention is to convince and persuade, to move toward truth, that’s not a very effective approach.

And when you write things like, “check normal science books instead of idealogue sites” only to then go on to cite Wikipedia, that doesn’t help much, either.  Why not interact with the full substance of the article rather than dismissing it because of the source?

I openly admit that I’m not an expert in genetics, embryology or bioethics, but it seems to me that the wiki article you cited is dealing with something a bit different from the article I cited. Wiki is talking about parthogenesis in the usual sense of born member of the species reproducing.  The article I cited seems to be borrowing the concept of parthogenesis - the general mechanism - and proposing that something similar may be what is occurring in the case of twinning rather than what you believe is occurring.  If one reads closely and with charity, one will note that they wrote, “a form of parthogenesis”.

Additionally, they continued the point in this way:

Quote:

In the broader realm of cloning, the production of a second, genetically-identical clone does not mean the original being ceases to exist or never existed at all.

The process of twinning does not appear to alter the essential character of the zygote that existed before the twinning occurred. Where there had only been one ‘body,’ cleavage yields two.

The process of human reproduction is itself a remarkable example of how one body can give rise to a separate, morally-significant, genetically-distinct, second body – without ever ceasing to exist itself. Conceiving and giving birth doesn’t mean the woman wasn’t already human before the process took place. Nor does anyone suggest that she has somehow become two people. Her body has simply produced another body.

Science can tell us when individual, biological life begins (http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony/). It cannot tell us when “personhood” (http://www.abort73.com/abortion/personhood/) begins or “ensoulment” takes place.

Since there is no way to distinguish between zygotes that will divide into monozygotic twins and those that won’t, and since the division can occur anywhere within a nine-day range, the existence of monozygotic twinning does not provide an observable line of demarcation whereby an embryo definitively moves from being a human non-person to being a human person.

The attempt to make a distinction between human beings and human persons has never turned out well (http://www.abort73.com/abortion/systematic_injustice/). The most ethically-safe criteria is to regard all living human-beings as persons under the law.

Philosophically, the reality of monozygotic twinning does raise some perplexing questions. But from a biological standpoint, not much changes. Even if you want to use monozygotic twinning to argue against the existence of “personal” human life prior to day twelve, does it really make sense to argue that so long as one human being can become two human beings, we should be allowed to destroy the one before that can happen? Shouldn’t the human embryo’s remarkable capacity to reproduce itself secure it more protection instead of less?

(End Quote)

You may disagree with their arguments, but I see no reason to dismiss them out of hand simply because they come from a website dedicated to defending human life.

I would also suggest that I don’t see anything in your arguments – even if they are correct - that would render the killing of fertilized ovum as morally acceptable.  It is still a distinct, human life with a set of DNA as complete as any adult’s.  It’s a distinct, human life.  As Dennis has already pointed out, when in doubt, one is obliged to err on the side of life.  Science doesn’t seem confused at all about when human life begins:  it’s at conception.

http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony/

I also don’t think that focusing on the exceptional case is a good way to make law.  Human life should be protected from the moment of conception. And, again, that’s not just my personal opinion, it’s the teaching of the Church:

CCC 2270/Donum Vitae:  Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.  From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life. (END)

Your argument, then, seems to be with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.  If you believe the Church is in error on this point, then by all means, take it up with the hierarchy.  Make your case. You might consider publishing a paper on the subject and submitting it for peer review and also to the Pontifical Academy for Life.  I believe that’s what a serious, Catholic scientist would do rather than trying to make the case to non-experts in comboxes on the Internet.

MikeF
    Wiki is constantly berated and constantly used probably by you also precisely because each entry depends on separate authors…some of whom are excellent and some of whom are not.  To blanketedly disrespect all of wiki is an internet sport that even the people who do it really don’t believe.  The entry I linked was fine and you know it was fine.
Yours was ludicrous but he had good intentions but so do abortion doctor shooters.
    Secondly, you actually investigated my posts which is kind of voyeuristic since it never crossed my mind to investigate yours nor to hope that you’d disclose your occupation….and thus you found me posting on what must be a decimal of one percent of Catholic blogs.  Google Catholic Blogs and go to the directory and there must be over 1400 by now and I posted on ? 6 or 7.  Don’t go into CIA work.  Keep your job and I have no interest in what it is.  I run my own private money for a living and only through moral stocks.  Check your 401 and make sure Pfizer is not in it since they make the
birth control pill.  On a serious level….run all such stock questions through your pastor since your 401 probably does
contain pharma stocks.  He may bring up double effect in that Pfiser also makes things that are helping your family.
    Lastly, there is no doubt that an individual cannot divide into 4 individuals at two weeks.  You doubt it because your reason is not operating as strongly as your obedience to passages in documents.  That’s how Catholics cooperated with evil for centuries.  Catholicism is the true religion but as Arnold Toynbee noted, it has aspects of an excessively mimetic culture….and Toynbee admired Catholicism a great deal.

Dennis,
  You too like MikeF…don’t go into CIA work.  Your aha moment is incomprehensible to me.  I know two religious Catholic girls who were raped.  One is unstable til this day.  Do you know any rape victims at all?  Maybe not if you live away from large cities.  My belief in what such victims can morally do if they have a horror… unlike some other women…of looking at a baby who looks like their attacker flows from the reality of what Mr. Shannon pointed out….it can’t be an individual if it can be teased into becoming four individuals at two weeks.  If you one day have a daughter or loved one who is raped and you, Dennis, after seeing the dilemna of the 14 day twinning, tell them that preventing implantation is equal to surgical abortion then I pity them; and you will know that you are not telling them the whole picture.  Do you remember our recently vanished 2 media priests….who were expert at catching people surrounding this issue?  Their patterns should have warned you by now about the inquisitional aha moment personality and it’s ultimately bad ending.

For those in favor of the mandate, the claim that “women’s health” is morally superior to the killing of an unborn child goes to show how far you are willing to go. Whether you agree with the Catholic Church or not - and their freedom to preach AND practice this - you need to look at this from the standpoint of moral superiority. Those in favor of the mandate are claiming that “women’s health” takes precedence over an unborn child’s rights. At least a woman can choose whether she wants to practice contraception or not. An unborn child who gets killed in his/her mother’s womb: Who’s standing up for their rights? What “choice” does he/she have? That’s why ALL issues go back to the right to life FIRST. That’s why it’s also FIRST in the Declaration of Independence. Also the Right to Life takes priority over the Freedom of Religion. ‘Cause without life, you have no other freedoms and rights.

Dick Morris made the wise observation that the left changed the issue from abortion to contraception because they know that they can’t win the battle on abortion. So, he said that the left made the issue that of contraception because they will have a more favorable chance of winning the issue on popularity. Most people do not object to contraception, as compared to the amount of people that object to abortion. In other words, what the underlying argument says is, “You can be in favor of contraception and be against abortion at the same time.” Most non-Catholic Christians are against abortion but practice contraception. Sadly, there are - let me stress - “baptized” Catholics that are also against abortion, though, practice contraception. So, the left has a “stronger” chance at accomplishing this objective if they can take the attention off of abortion and make it about “women’s rights, women’s health” via the “popular” vehicle - even among “98% of Catholic women” -  of contraception.

Finally, I feel that 2 very subtle points are being missed here. This arguement feeds right into the mentality that says CHILDREN ARE A BURDEN and that practitioners of contraception are essentially CLOSED TO LIFE. Contraception is the means to the end. This is the mentality of the CULTURE OF DEATH. Also, use of contraception is the ULTIMATE rejection of a woman and male because you are NOT accepting their fertility. You are in essence saying, “I love everything about you EXCEPT your fertility.”

I hope this is a first step if it’s repealed. Those of us who must pay for insurance out of pocket or works for non-religious employers may someday have the option of removing the procedures from their individual plan.

Goodbye gentlemen….I believe the moderator has stopped the thread.  My responses vanished.  Adieu.

Bill,
Perhaps he did not stop the thread, but deleted your responses because they crossed a line? I am done with this anyway. It has become obvious that you are not going to be persuaded. That’s fine, you ar welcome to your views.

Unfortunately, it has also become obvious that you are seeking to get the camel’s nose into the tent. You revealed that when the culmination of your arguments come down to making the abortion of a very early term baby acceptable. Then you pull out that tried and true pro-choice show-stopper, the young victim of rape.

Finally, you descend into name calling and innuendo, tryin to forge links between those who are trying to present a conservative, obedient view and abortion doctor shooters. What’s next, the Inquistion?

And finally you drag out the pro-choice playbook to ask what I would do if my daughter had been raped, implying my response would be so inappropriate that they should be pitied. I do have daughters, and if they found themselves in this position I would do my best to support them. But I would point out that it should not be the rapists face they see when they look at thier child, but the face of God. That they and their love will be what influences the path the child takes, not that act of violence. That, just as God brought forth the miracle of eternal life from the unspeakable violence done to our Lord at Calvary, He can bring forth the miracle of life from this act of violence.

Gentleman, I believe it is time to shake the dust from our feet and move on, for he refuses to hear.

I was drawn to this article after hearing

someone on the radio claim that the Catholic

postion on birth control has not changed for

2000 years. It seems to be the kind of thing

people say without any factual justification.

After reading Fr. Pacwa’s article, I remain

unconvinced that Catholics have taken a dim view

of birth control since the birth of Christianity

itself.

First of all, Fr. Pacwa’s consistently uses the

phrase “contraception and abortion,” unfairly

implying that the two are the same. He finds

many quotes that condemn abortion, and would

have us jump to the conclusion that a

condemnation of abortion implies a condemnation

of contraception.

Secondly, the only direct reference (from early

sources) to contraception is from an obscure,

non-canonical text called the Didache. Even

here, Fr. Pacwa’s evidence depends on a rather

irresponsible translation of a phrase that means

“practice sorcery.” He would have us swallow the

proposition that practicing sorcery is

equivalent to practicing birth control. Since

the phrase “birth control’ did not come into

common usage until 1914, Fr. Pacwa’s

interpretation seems more than a little

contrived.

Finally, I almost fell off my chair when I saw

Fr. Pacwa quote Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Luther and Calvin in defense of Catholic

doctrine? I suppose they could have been correct

on contraception and wrong on everything else.

Anyway, I don’t think that there is anything in

this article that will persuade the overwhelming

majority of Catholics who practice contraception

to change their ways.

The Catholic biblical citations on Abortion:
http://www.veritasbible.com/resources/sacred_scripture_shortcuts/categories/Sin/Abortion

and the blessings of children:
http://www.veritasbible.com/resources/sacred_scripture_shortcuts/categories/Life/Children

I’d be very interested in having Father Mitch explain to us how the Didache, or any other ancient texts, could possibly refer to contraception in the Humanae Vitae sense of “artificial” contraception.

The female ovum was not even discovered until the 19th century.  The ancients simply had no concept of contraception in our sense of the term.

Call me picayune, but it seems a bit intellectually dishonest for Father Mitch, who after all is not making it up on the fly like Sean Hannity and really is an educated man, to make the preposterous claim that “the term [pharmakeuseis] may refer to contraceptive measures, as is the case in a number of the following texts.”

Especially since, when you go through the “following texts,” you can see that they all very clearly refer to abortion in one form or another.

Assuming that the facts of life were explained at some point to Father Mitch in a manner in which he would agree that most forms of “artificial” contraception can by no means be regarded as abortifacient, perhaps Father Mitch should have narrowed his comment to “the Didache may forbid the morning after pill.”

Now the fact that Father Mitch is trying to pull a fast one on most of the readers of his blog who are not equipped, as he is, to dishonestly mangle the ancient texts he is dealing with does not by itself call into question the essential truth of the arguments of Humanae Vitae, or the current clamor from the bishops that contraception foes against their consciences because it is “inherently immoral.”

All that may very well be true.  But there is no authority for this position in the Didache, or any of the other texts Father Mitch has cited.

Bill,

So, in other words, we can safely conclude that you’re not an expert in embryology, genetics, bioethics or any other related field.  You’ve got a personal agenda that’s at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church and you’re promoting that agenda to Catholics on various blogs and websites across the Internet.

The reason I searched your name is simple and straightforward, hopefully it will allay your fears.  As I already stated, you seemed extremely motivated to promote your point of view here on a Catholic blog, a point of view that plainly doesn’t conform to the teaching of the Church.  You presented fairly technical arguments in so doing.  In the process, you also belittled Catholics who resisted your efforts as being essentially ignorant and dishonest.  As such, it was perfectly logical and reasonable to find out if you were an expert in this field, and whether you had written anything more comprehensive about it in the past that could be reviewed.  When I entered your name and “twinning” (one of your primary arguments), your name came up repeatedly – not on any articles, books or peer-reviewed journals, but in the com-boxes of quite a few Catholic blogs making the same arguments you’re making here.  It took me all of 5 seconds:

http://www.google.com/search?=en&q=Bill+Bannon+“twinning”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

You seem to be embarrassed by that fact and so you’re attacking me personally, trying to divine my motives.  But calling a simple, 5-second Internet search on your name and the topic at hand “voyeuristic” is pretty silly.

In regard to my comment about Wikipedia, you missed the point and went on a tangent based on a completely unjustified conclusion.  If you go back and re-read what I wrote more carefully, you’ll see that my criticism wasn’t so much of Wikipedia as it was with your double standard.  Is it really your contention that Wikipedia is “a normal science book”, as you put it?  That was the standard you established, Bill.  And if you believe that Wikipedia isn’t ever tainted by ideology, you’re naïve.  Its quality is uneven.  Sometimes it’s quite good, other times it isn’t.  That’s why you’re not likely to see “Wikipedia” cited as a source in a scholarly article.

But to the primary topic, you had no substantive answers to the response presented.  Calling the article I cited “ludicrous” without presenting a factual basis for that characterization isn’t helpful or convincing.  Drawing a parallel between that article and “abortion doctor shooters” is even less so.  And your comments about investments seems little more than diversion and obfuscation - reminiscent of a scene from The Wizard of Oz:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE

Again there’s nothing in the arguments you’ve presented – even if you’re correct – that would render the killing of newly created human life morally acceptable.  It is still a distinct, human life with a set of DNA as complete as any adult’s.  It’s not a part of the mother’s body.  It’s a human life in its own right, possessing an independent life force of its own that will drive its development from the moment of conception until the moment of death.  Again, unlike you, science doesn’t seem confused at all about when human life begins:  it’s at conception: http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony/
 

No one has a right to kill it.  Period.  And that’s the teaching of Christ’s Church.

Additionally, I challenge your assumption that killing the newly created human life within her will necessarily ease the pain of a woman who has been raped.  Can you provide studies that support that assumption?  The only study I’ve seen on the subject supports the notion that woman who are raped abort no more frequently than any woman who has an unplanned pregnancy:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m6875/is_4_14/ai_n25025984/

And what do you make of women like this?

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/index.html

Now, you complain that my obedience and deference to the teaching of Christ’s Church is making me unable to view the evidence without bias in this case.  I would disagree that I’m unable to view the evidence fairly, but I readily acknowledge my bias.  It’s true that I trust and submit to the authority of Jesus Christ as given to His Church: “He who hears you, hears me” (Luke 10:16).

Conversely, you seem blind to your own bias, even though you’ve just recently disclosed the source of it.  You stated that you “know two religious Catholic girls who were raped.”  So, you’re viewing the evidence through that lens.  Your emotional response to the idea of a woman bearing a child conceived through rape seems to be driving your examination of the evidence.  So, much like the pro-abort, you’re straining to find a justification for your goal.  And in the process, unfortunately, you’re effectively establishing yourself as an alternate magisterium of one.

That’s problematic enough when it is solely you holding to that position.  But it becomes far worse when you attempt to spread your errors to Catholics across the Internet, rather brow-beating them as though you’re an authority or expert when you’re not.

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt at first, Bill.  But if you’re a Catholic, what you’re doing is seriously wrong and I urge you to stop.

If you want to approach this as a faithful Catholic and a serious scientist, then you should study the issue thoroughly and make your case to the National Catholic Bioethics Center - perhaps contact Fr. Tad Pacholczyk.  He’s brilliant in this area:

http://www.ncbcenter.org/

Perhaps then make your case to the Pontifical Academy for Life:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/index.htm

Vet your views faithfully and responsibly.  But I highly doubt you’re going to get the response you want.

But it’s wrong for you to try to undermine the Magisterium among Catholics in com-boxes.  Your motivation may be good - sympathy for women who have been raped.  But your methods aren’t.

Adrian,

You write, “the only direct reference (from early sources) to contraception is from an obscure, non-canonical text called the Didache.”

It’s true that the Didache is non-canonical but it’s not true to say that it’s “obscure.”  The Didache is a well-known, Catholic source.  Many did consider it to be canonical at one time (although it was not officially accepted). It was something of an early Catholic Catechism dating back as early as the mid-first century AD.

For more on that:

http://www.catholic.com/video/what-is-the-didache

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04779a.htm

The point is also that there is no evidence that any of the Fathers of the Church, any council, synod, or Pope has ever supported contraception.  As Fr. Pacwa stated, “None of the Fathers or councils offer contradictory opinions on contraception or abortion.”  There has been no “change in teaching”, either in regard to abortion or contraception.  There has certainly been *development*, as we gain further scientific knowledge (which is to be expected), but no change -  as if the Church was fine with abortion and/or contraception and then took the opposite view over time.

You continue, “First of all, Fr. Pacwa’s consistently uses the phrase “contraception and abortion,” unfairly
implying that the two are the same.”

I don’t see that.  But the two (abortion and contraception) do emanate from the same problematic, philosophical mind-set.  Abortion very naturally flows from the contraceptive mind-set.  Both are “against life”.  This connection is seen very clearly today, as the majority of abortions are performed on women who have been using contraceptives (according Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, Alan Guttmacher).  Abortion is back-up contraception.

In regard to your criticism about the supposed lack of “early” evidence is against contraception, I find the reference to St. Hippolytus to be quite early - circa 228 AD.  St. Hippolytus:  “women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility…” 

St. Augustine is still squarely in the Patristic period as well: 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14588a.htm

“I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust *obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed*. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame”

You continue, “I almost fell off my chair when I saw Fr. Pacwa quote Martin Luther and John Calvin.”

I’m not sure why.  Toward the beginning of the article, Fr. Pacwa mentioned Casti Connubii and stated that it “was written in response to the change of moral doctrine by the Anglican Church, which undermined centuries of Protestant condemnation of contraception by permitting it at the Aug. 15, 1930 Lambeth Conference.”

I took his references to Luther and Calvin as supporting the statement that even Protestants opposed contraception before the Lambeth Conference.  In fact, if you like, pick up the book “The Bible and Birth Control”  by Charles Provan.  You’ll find a surprising amount of additional support in there.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=03-03-041-b

St. Augustine wrote On Marriage and Concupiscence (419): “...for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame.”

An excellent indictment of birth control and abortion. Shame is what our society has abandoned. The rest follows quickly.

billyblog,

“I’d be very interested in having Father Mitch explain to us how the Didache, or any other ancient texts, could possibly refer to contraception in the Humanae Vitae sense of ‘artificial’ contraception.”

Artificial contraception dates back to Ancient Greece.

“The female ovum was not even discovered until the 19th century.  The ancients simply had no concept of contraception in our sense of the term.”

What you’re saying is irrelevant because the point is that people DID try to prevent conception.

“Assuming that the facts of life were explained at some point to Father Mitch in a manner in which he would agree that most forms of ‘artificial’ contraception can by no means be regarded as abortifacient, perhaps Father Mitch should have narrowed his comment to ‘the Didache may forbid the morning after pill’.”

The Catholic Church is not only concerned with the destruction of human life via an abortifacient or abortion procedure, but it is specifically concerned the attitude of people when they wish to artificially prevent life. That attitude is “inherently immoral.”

Bill Bannon in a comment above (Feb 16) presents articles which are based on preposterous principles: 1) that God is directed by biology and not vice-versa (these unsoulment arguments are just plain silly with our present knowledge of biology -  I believe that God creates souls with complete knowledge and power such that twins’ souls may be created at fertilization and the identical twins are ensouled at cleavage - evidence pro or con is beyond te reach of science. 2) most human beings never had any possibility of being twins so the twinning argument is useless if you are trying to justify early abortions.  Should we not protect any tiny human beings because a very few may have not yet received a soul OR do they have 2 souls?!  3) discussing when personhood begins begs the question - an elementary error in logic.  Using the scientific term, “human being” avoids this problem.  ““Person” is being used therein with legal moorings.

Fr. Pacwa, Praise our Father for the God pleasing Jesuits like yourself. Thank you for showing the world that abortion has been considered murder for 2,000 years. I pray we can get all Catholics and Pro-Lifers to stand up and fight for “the least of our brethren”, the unborn.  IT IS NOT one issue among many. We would not be at 56 million abortions and counting if they had done so in the past. If Pres. OB gets another term, true Catholics/Christians will be an endangered species. God Bless our soldiers for Christ. Christi Fidelis !

I just heard of this blog this morning, so here’s a late post:
Several years ago, a friend told me the contraception pill could possibly cause an abortion.  But I didn’t believe her.  This woman questions nothing.  She only repeats whatever she hears or reads from Catholic sources.

It was only after I heard a panel of non-Catholic clergymen recently say the same thing that I realized there could be something to what this woman told me, so long ago.

Even then, I know a woman that was proud of having been on the Rythmn system 50+ years ago.  She has 9 children.  I can’t imagine how many children she’d have, if she didn’t do any family planning.

So, no matter how well meaning the people, I’d never take advice about anything as important as NFP from:

1- A Catholic that never questions anything.
2- A priest or bishop that never had to deal with marriage, parenting or working to send children to college.
3- A desert church “Father” that lived removed from society, 1600 years ago.

With that said, I appreciate the article and the comments.  Good and timely subject.

Dear My fellow Catholic and Christian Americans,
Thank you Father Pacwa SJ, the battle line hand been drawn since the first Battle Cry in Heaven ” WHO IS LIKE GOD” by Saint Michael Prince of the heavenly host, satan had done a wrong calculation on the children of God. There is no middle ground or sitting on the fence as Our General and King of King Jesus Christ had stated who is not on my side is against Me . This pronouncement is very terrifying even the powerful angels in heaven and satan and his allies in hell tremble into their very core of their existence. This is are pure immortal spirits, but reflect on us human beings with mortal nature but possesed immortal soul that depend on God’s Divine Mercy. In this part of the world every sections of Catholic Church is sifting gear as every Beloved Catholics and faithful Christians are on the roll heading for the frontline as this a crucial moment for the final assault on the gate of Hell. Catholics in Papua New Guinea are with you fellow Catholic Americans brothers and sisters. Our Faith is not build on sifting sand of ideologies and compromises but build on the rock who is Christ Himself. God will never forsaken his beloved children in our very dark moment. All Catholics around the globe armed yourself with your Holy Rosaries, Psalter of Our Beloved Mother Blessed Virgin Mary, She is leading the army of God While her Beloved Son Jesus Christ is watching closed by as we take our turn walking up to Mount Golgota for our Eternal prize with our cross. There is no turning back we are all heading home to our Eternal Father. As He awaits for the return of His prodigal sons and daughters from exile. Human life is sacred and mystery because it comes from God and bears His DNA.
May Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us now and the hour death, Amen
Yours in Jesus and Mother Mary
Peter Christopher
Papua New Guinea
Western Pacific Ocean
Brother in Christ