Circumcision is a sin for Catholics?

[Cat]

Doesn’t it make sense that if circumcision is truly a mortal sin, that ALL bishops would be aware of it and teach this to their flock? Surely Holy Mother Church would not continue to allow most of the United States Catholics to commit mortal sin and say nothing to us, would she?

 

[RogerDeCourcy]

• The foreskin protects a very sensitive part of your anatomy.

It has a purpose, along with every other part of your anatomy. It’s not dead, like hair or nails.

• I read it’s possible to get a serious disease, in sandy climates if you don’t wash down there, so that’s a reason maybe the forefathers plumped for it BUT proper hygeine negates this.
• It is a de-facto mutilation of a baby. There’s no religious reason for Catholics to do it.
• The foreskin protects a very sensitive part of your anatomy.
• Arguments about hygeine are spurious in temperate climiates. What should be looked at is why people want to do this to boy children? I think it’s morbid and weird.

I’m sooo glad my parents didn’t do this to me. My cousin’s parent’s did it to them. My mother had her tonsils out as a child because, she said, it was fashionable. I think that’s all it is.
FEAR the medically obsessed parent: their poor children!

 

[crazzeto]

It’s funny, because a couple of times you hit upon what I feel is the accurate understanding of this document, but intersperce it with the idea that the document isn’t valid. Rather, I believe that this is entierly valid, more over found directly in the pages of scripture. The proper understanding, is that we are not to put our hope in the salvation of the Old Testament ritual of circomcison, thus anyone who practices this Old Testament ritual commits sin.

This issue, among others, is the reason the Council of Florence is tricky, and not very suitable for people trying to discover the Church’s teachings on issues, at least without reading a great number of books on the context of the Council.

The part that you quote is from the Bull of Union with the Copts. This and the bull for Union with the Armenians have not been considered by the magisterium or by theologians as an authentic expression of the magisterial teaching of the Church. This is why it is not in the Catechism and why priests don’t say anything about it.

The decree for the Armenians, for instance, follows almost to the letter the sacramental theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, and says that the ‘matter’ for the sacrament of ordination is the handing over of the instruments. Pius XII seemed to have no problem with the fact that the Council of Florence said this, when he said that the matter for ordination is the laying on of hands (I’m leaving aside the question of whether, for certain sacraments, the Church can ‘change’ what the essential rite is).

Simply put, accepting these statements creates a whole host of contradictions with other teachings. The Church doesn’t teach one way or the other on the issue of male circumcision, except for the valid principle which Florence correctly states, that a Christian cannot do it thinking that they are submitting to a requirement for salvation.

Even if this document were authoritative, what it is really speaking about is the ritual practice of male circumcision as practiced in Judaism as part of the law, imbued with religious meaning, not the medical practice of it. This is an important distinction.

 

[thistle]

A priest just told me that circumcision is now considered a medical procedure (usually performed by doctors in hospitals), and NOT a religious rite. It is therefore not a mortal sin to get a circumcision.

 

[TimothyH]

I don’t know if it has been brought up yet or not, but if it were up to me, as a father, I would make the boy look like his father.

The boy should not look at his father and then look at himself and see a difference like that, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is his growning up with his father as his example not only in appearance, but in character and behavior.

It is one thing to see differences between men, but another to see a marked difference like that between father and son, and then have to ask his father or ask himself why he is different from his father.

If I had a son, I would make sure that he looks like his dad with regard to circumcision.

-Tim-

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I don’t know if it has been brought up yet or not, but if it were up to me, as a father, I would make the boy look like his father.

The boy should not look at his father and then look at himself and see a difference like that, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is his growning up with his father as his example not only in appearance, but in character and behavior.

It is one thing to see differences between men, but another to see a marked difference like that between father and son, and then have to ask his father or ask himself why he is different from his father.

If I had a son, I would make sure that he looks like his dad with regard to circumcision.

-Tim-

Hmmm, one thing comes to mind.

In this day and age when would it be appropriate for a son to actually see, and in this case actually examine, his father’s genitals?

 

[babochka]

My boys are not circumcised, but I honestly didn’t consider the potential sinfulness in making the decision. I just didn’t want to do it, so I researched the pros and cons. In California, circumcision is becoming quite rare. We’ve always had lower circumcision rates due to our high immigrant population. It is no longer performed in hospitals, but is done in doctor’s offices when the baby is a few days old. Insurance usually does not cover the procedure, as it is not considered medically necessary. Although there is a very slight increased risk of penile cancer, my research did not link it to hygiene. Rather, it seems to be linked to the concept that one cannot get cancer in a body part that is no longer there. If the foreskin has been removed, a man will not get cancer there. As a previous poster said, it is a body part, with a function. As far as looking like dad, why does it really matter? No son looks just like his dad. We’re not producing clones to make children.There are anatomical differences between people for a variety of reasons and no son looks just like his dad. To the poster who was concerned about the appropriateness of a son seeing his dad’s genitals in this day and age, I think that’s a very puritanical attitude. It is perfectly acceptable (and healthy, even) for a son to have seen Dad nude and know what his anatomy looks like. To imply otherwise is to cast unnecessary doubt on the vast majority of fathers who have normal, healthy, non abusive relationships with their sons. My boys are different from their dad.They have both noticed and asked questions on occasion, and it wasn’t a big deal.Once I described the procedure to my older son, he seemed relieved that he did not go through it.(Perhaps that’s just his sensitive mother reading things into it.) Finally, to the guy who said that uncircumcised men were just plain ugly - you do know that God made them that way, right If you thought your child had an ugly nose, would you rush to plastic surgery? There was a time in China when (among certain classes) women’s normal feet were considered ugly, so they would bind them in order to (de)form them into something more attractive. We’re horrified at the deliberate mutilation of the body for that reason, but it is ok to mutilate the body so that a baby “looks like dad” or because “its ugly”? Finally, circumcision is not without health risks. Though rare, minor and serious complications do occur.; children.webmd.com/tc/circumcision-risks I didn’t start out as an anti-circumcision zealot, really. I just think that there should be some compelling reason to perform a surgical procedure on a newborn, that’s all. This is largely a cultural issue, and I am grateful that our culture is moving away from this practice. Maybe I do think it is a sin. I don’t know. After reading my response, I think I do. But certainly not moral.

 

[TradionalWay]

my research did not link it to hygiene.

If u take good care of yourself, there wont be hygiene problems

 

[Matrix_Refugee]

Hmmm, one thing comes to mind.

In this day and age when would it be appropriate for a son to actually see, and in this case actually examine, his father’s genitals?

I remember reading just that in a blog written by a guy during his wife’s pregnancy with their first child (and if I remember correctly, the gent himself had been circumcised for hygienic reasons). He was talking to his friends in a locker room about how they’d just found out, via ultrasound, that they were having a boy. Then some yobbo starts going off about how a boy’s bits should match his father’s, etc. To which the dad-to-be responded, “I’ve never seen my father’s bits in my life.”

 

[Marchmain1987]

Let’s put this particular document in some context:
Outwardly, it is based in typical anti-Semitic sentiment of the time surrounding Jewish converts and Jewish populations within Catholic Europe.

I’m not James Carroll; but when we don’t give anti-Semitic context to history, we only reinforce his ilk’s vision of Catholicism.

But it does make the clear point that circumcision has no current religious connection within the Christian tradition.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

Hmmm, one thing comes to mind.

In this day and age when would it be appropriate for a son to actually see, and in this case actually examine, his father’s genitals?

I think in times past, multiple males using the bathroom in the morning (shaving, showering, etc.) with the incidental “exposure” that entailed was not regarded as a moral problem. Similarly, father-son swims at the (by-definition-suitless) YMCA were common back in the day. However, our current mindset does seem to see these things differently. I’m not sure if this is progress or paranoia.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

It’s actually being phased out here. A family member of mine tried to get her son circumcised and the hospital refused. Also, San Francisco is making it illegal too (too bad for Jewish people I suppose)

Unless I’m mistaken, that attempted ballot initiative in San Francisco was ruled out as potentially discriminatory (to say nothing of way over-reaching and intrusive).

 

[blanc10]

Oh really? I was wondering what happened to that.

 

[vsedriver]

Hmmm, one thing comes to mind.

In this day and age when would it be appropriate for a son to actually see, and in this case actually examine, his father’s genitals?

When my children were in grade school we did a lot of camping. Many of these places had open type showers for the men. So my sons showered with their dad.

 

[Phemie]

I have two sons who are not circumcised simply because I assisted at a circumcision in my nursing student years and vowed I’d never do that to any child.

As for the argument that there is a slightly increased risk of penile cancer decades down the road, well, even though there is a greater than 10% chance that any girl will develop breast cancer I notice that no one is pushing for them to be given a mastectomy at birth.

 

[blanc10]

Trust me, when it’s done at birth you never remember it.

 

[graceandglory]

While doing some research on circumcision and deciding whether or not to have our baby boy circumcised (as the docs at the hospital suggest), I came across some pretty shocking quotes from past Councils and Popes. They seem to suggest that for current Catholics to have their little boys circumcised would be gravely sinful… but why isn’t there other information about this? And why isn’t it talked about… our priest had no idea and didn’t really know what to say. I also found a traditional site that discussed how modern day circumcision is not at all the same as the circumcision practiced by the Jews-- but I can’t remember where I found it.

For now, we have not gotten our baby circumcised, but family, friends, and our pediatrician seem to think my husband and I are crazy.

Any help is appreciated.

From the Council of Florence:

This seems pretty straightforward to us since it explicitly states that it doesn’t matter whether circumcision is viewed as having saving power, Christians are simply ordered not to do it under pain of damnation! If this is really what the Church teaches, why isn’t it in the Catechism and why don’t priests know enough to be able to guide parents on this issue?

I don’t think that any Christians practice it as a religious ritual, nor put thier hope of salvation in the practice. Today it is continued because of its health benefits.

 

[bcra]

if it were were a sin then I and 40000 other catholic are living in sin. sorry:takethat: i do not believe it

 

[JHow]

As a means to salvation, it is condemned. As a medical means, it is permissible. Look up the Council of Jerusalem, in Acts of the Aposrles chapter 15.

The Council of Florence is condemning it’s use as a way to salvation. Catholics can’t get circumcised if they belief it is the only way to attain salvation. That is, if they think all non-circumcised Catholics are automatically damned, then the practice is condemned.

Medically, it doesn’t matter one way or another.

This is the most sensible response to the original question. Anyone who claims that circumcision is necessary for salvation is making a heretical statement. Anyone who’s parent’s pediatrician told them years ago that circumcision should be done for preventive care reasons has done nothing wrong.

All those who are so incensed about modern circumcision as a preventive measure would do well to remember that in 1924 Calvin Coolidge’s son died from an infected blister after playing tennis. We are not that many generations from people who lived in a world with no anti-biotics (my parents, for instance), and circumcision is typically done at birth, so if modern health practice decides it has no utility, you should not expect the practice (or the decision of its inutility) to disappear so quickly.

 

[blanc10]

I think the main reason circumcision is used is not for any health preventative reasons. It’s usually done for hygienic or normative reasons.