Reply to Rogue Pope

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Rogue Pope"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]The Church’s condemnation of abortion can be traced to not later than the time of the Apostolic Fathers in the first and second centuries. We read in the Didache “You shall not kill an unborn child or murder a newborn infant.”

The Epistle of Barnabas, dating to as early as the year 70 counsels “You shall not slay the child by abortion.”

Athenagorus of Athens, in a letter to Marcus Aurelius in the year 177 taught:  Those women who use drugs to bring about an abortion commit murder and will have to give an account to God for their abortion.”

Similar teaching is found in the Apoligeticus of Tertullian (ca. 197):  “For us [Christians], murder is once and for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother's blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful for us to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder. It makes no difference whether one takes away the life once born or destroys it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.”

Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-220) is in accord:  “Women who make use of some sort of deadly abortion drug kill not only the embryo but, together with it, all human kindness.”

The great scripture scholar St. Jerome (ca. 340-420) observed that “some unmarried women, when they learn they are with child through sin, practice abortion by the use of drugs. Frequently they die themselves and are brought before the ruler of the lower world guilty of three crimes; suicide, adultery against Christ, and murder of an unborn child.”

In the 13th Century, Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that regardless when the human soul might be infused, it was a grave sin against nature to reject God’s gift of a new life.

Each of these examples confirms that the Church has condemned abortion from its earliest days.

Modern secular writers, particularly those with an axe to grind, frequently confuse (and thereby misrepresent) changes over time in the Canonical penalties for abortion by incorrectly identifying them as changes in the Church’s substantive moral teaching.

For example, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V sought to discourage abortion by reserving absolution for that sin to the Holy See (the Pope himself). This proved unworkable so the next Pope, Gregory XIV, returned absolution for abortion to local diocesan bishops.  Proponents of abortion claim that this change made abortion permissible. This obviously was not the case. If  abortion was not a sin, no absolution would have been necessary.  In short, In the Church’s teaching on the evil of abortion remained constant; what changed from time to time was how abortion was penalized administratively, as by excommunication or by some lesser penalty.

In 1679, Pope Innocent XI condemned the writings and teachings of theologians who believed that abortion was lawful if the fetus was not yet animated or ensouled. Any distinction in Canon law between “formed” and “unformed” fetuses was removed by Pope Pius IX in 1869, making the administrative penalties for abortion uniforming and underlining Church teaching against abortion at any stage.

Modern Popes have likewise been in accord in their condemnation of abortion, as are the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The Church’s teaching on abortion is not set forth in summary articles like those linked on this thread, even less so is it found in abstracts thereof. It is found in the traditions of the Church dating to Apostolic times and in the Church’s magisterial (teaching) documents. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics