Correct claim about catholic dogma?

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When skimming through this court decision, yet again trying to understand the logic behind killing children (i continously fail at this), law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
i found this claim about catholic dogma:
“The Aristotelian theory of “mediate animation,” that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this “ensoulment” theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from [p161] the moment of conception.”

(section IX, 8th paragraph)

As far as i understood it, it was (and is) catholic dogma that human life begins at ensoulment and abortion from that moment on is violation of 5th commandment, but when this happens dogma does not specify or at least didnt until recently.

Yet this court decision claims that catholic dogma officially adopted some aristotelian theory.

Anybody can supporting or falsifying this claim?
 
There has been debate through the centuries about when ensoulment or animation begins. We must remember that medical knowledge of embryology and fetal development were primitive until recently.

This has nothing to do with abortion, however. The Church has always forbidden abortion. See the Didache from apostolic times:
The Two Ways and the First Commandment. There are two ways, one of life and one of death,but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you…
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And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born…
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carn said:
When skimming through this court decision, yet again trying to understand the logic behind killing children (i continously fail at this), law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
i found this claim about catholic dogma:
“The Aristotelian theory of “mediate animation,” that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this “ensoulment” theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from [p161] the moment of conception.”

(section IX, 8th paragraph)

As far as i understood it, it was (and is) catholic dogma that human life begins at ensoulment and abortion from that moment on is violation of 5th commandment, but when this happens dogma does not specify or at least didnt until recently.

Yet this court decision claims that catholic dogma officially adopted some aristotelian theory.

Anybody can supporting or falsifying this claim?
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The truth is that we really don’t know at what point the soul enters the body. Science now tells us that human life begins at conception, but we are not able to scientifically determine whether a soul has actually been joined to the body. There are some cases of gross fetal deformity, most of which result in miscarriage, that may never become ensouled.

However, since we don’t know the actual point at which the soul is joined to the body, we err on the side of safety and assume it is conception, since we know of several cases where this has happened, as in the case of our Lord, and His mother. We also know that John the Baptist was quickened by the HS while still in the womb, and Scripture has it:

Ps 139:13-16
3 For thou didst form my inward parts,
thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful.
Wonderful are thy works!
Thou knowest me right well;
15 my frame was not hidden from thee,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
16 Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
 
The question is not, whether/when/how ensoulment or humanhood or personhood happens, but whether there was/is catholic dogma regarding the time, when it happens, which states it does not happen until some point into the pregnancy.
 
The bottom line is how one defines life. I (and most embryologists) would claim that life exists when there is the possibility of cellular division. This occurs moments after fertilization.

This is the critical issue which the court failed to take up in roe v wade.

If it had been taken up, then the legal question would be, when does a living thing deserve Constitutional protection? In rough terms, that is the legal definition of personhood. The legal argument does not always coincide with the theological one. But, it would be a giant step in the right direction, if the court would stipulate that the beginning of life occurs at the time of conception.

I can’t help with the history of Church dogma. But we do know from science when life begins, and current dogma is supported by that.
 
carn said:
The question is not, whether/when/how ensoulment or humanhood or personhood happens, but whether there was/is catholic dogma regarding the time, when it happens, which states it does not happen until some point into the pregnancy.
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The one making the claim would have to be the one to produce the dogmatic declaration. The footnote to the paragraph you are referencing seems to point to “D. Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality 409-447 (1970); Noonan 1.” Looks like used copies of some reprints are available for cheap at Amazon.

We’d have to see what the author Callahan claimed was the dogmatic statement (if he provides it) and see how it is written.
 
uffl.org/vol12/conley12.pdf
Not only have many authors of the current revival of delayed animation distorted the Church’s ambiguity on this issues and illegitimately drawn pro-abortion moral and political conclusions, they have operated a tendentious distortion of the Church’s history. The abuse of Aquinas is typical. Catholic supporters of delayed animation often cite Aquinas’s celebrated theory of delayed ensoulment. However, they rarely cite Aquinas’s categorical condemnation of all abortion as gravely evil in his Commentary on the Sentences.xi Nor do they discuss the inaccurate, indeed now fantastic, theory of human gestation which Aquinas borrowed whole cloth from Aristotle’s De Anima and Generation of Animals. It is touching to watch certain “pro choice” Catholics piously laud Thomas’s theory of delayed animation when they find little else of worth in his corpus. For many cooler observers, Thomas’s theory of fetal development belongs in the museum of Thomistic howlers, next to his support for judicial torture and capital punishment for relapsed heretics.
This selective reading of Church history in an effort to strain some support for the morality of abortion ignores the obvious. From the beginning of its history the Church categorically condemned abortion and infanticide, both of which were widely practiced in the Greco-Roman world.
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Thanks, that probably settles the issue:
uffl.org/vol12/conley12.pdf

“Quaestio de abortu, cited frequently by Evangelium Vitae and
Donum Vitae, pursues a similar argument. It admits a certain ambiguity
concerning the moment of ensoulment, but leans strongly toward the
thesis of immediate animation:
…
It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the
spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. In resolving
cases, approved authors were more lenient with regard to that early stage than
with regard to later stages. But it was never denied at that time that procured
abortion, even during the first says, was a grave sin.viii”

If there ever had been a dogma, the authors of that document would have discussed it. As they didnt and just talk about opinions and distinctions in criminal law, there never was a dogma.

Its so shameful, i mean if i hate someone or something, i would make sure, that i get to understand the enemies position correctly before attacking and trying to destroy him (especially because that tends to make a more thourghful victory). They never seem to have heard about Sun Tzu.
 
carn said:
Thanks, that probably settles the issue:
uffl.org/vol12/conley12.pdf

“Quaestio de abortu, cited frequently by Evangelium Vitae and
Donum Vitae, pursues a similar argument. It admits a certain ambiguity
concerning the moment of ensoulment, but leans strongly toward the
thesis of immediate animation:
…
It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the
spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. In resolving
cases, approved authors were more lenient with regard to that early stage than
with regard to later stages. But it was never denied at that time that procured
abortion, even during the first says, was a grave sin.viii”

If there ever had been a dogma, the authors of that document would have discussed it. As they didnt and just talk about opinions and distinctions in criminal law, there never was a dogma.

Its so shameful, i mean if i hate someone or something, i would make sure, that i get to understand the enemies position correctly before attacking and trying to destroy him (especially because that tends to make a more thourghful victory). They never seem to have heard about Sun Tzu.
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You should never hate anyone, even enemies.
 
As far as we know from the teaching of the Fathers, humans are created body and soul. So to answer when ensoulment happens is easy if you can p(name removed by moderator)oint as to when a human body is present. If a fertilized egg a human body already? I believe it is, because there is no longer any external factor (aside from nutrition) that is needed for it to develop into something else. I mean, the egg is just the egg, the sperm is just the sperm. Once they meet and fertilize, that is it, it is a continous process into the development into a human being. The changes from fertilized egg to baby is the same as the changes from a baby to an adult. Remember that certain organs still develop in a human body after birth. A baby cannot get pregnant nor get anyone else pregnant, teeth still have to grow then fall off before the permanent ones grow, and certain bones still have to fuse. So you do not wait for all development to be complete before you say that is a human being, and that starting point is at conception.
 
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